NEW DELHI: With Rahul Gandhi on vacation abroad, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is executing the Uttar Pradesh game plan with the help of senior leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi. According to sources, several rounds of meetings have been held at 10 Janpath since Rahul left for Europe-free London on June 20.
On Saturday, party general secretary and UP in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad and leaders from the state P L Punia and Pramod Tiwari drove to 10 Janpath and held a closed-door meeting.
“Tiwari has held several meetings at 10 Janpath for last one week and a section within the party believes that he is the first preference of Azad who also met Priyanka Gandhi and is understood to have discussed the UP polls strategy,” a source said. “Although a majority of state leaders endorsed Jitin Prasada as the next UP Congress president, Azad took the guarantee that Tiwari’s organisational skills could help the party pull off a successful electoral strategy. A final decision may be taken after Rahul’s return as Sonia Gandhi is also scheduled to travel abroad towards end of this month,” the source said. A leader said the humiliating loss in Kerala, Assam and West Bengal was being cited as a perfect example for a case study to introspect what went wrong.