LUCKNOW: When the newly-appointed Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was asked if she would fight the elections, she said it had to be party’s decision. “If my party wants me to contest, of course, I will,” said Priyanka while adding that her brother and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls in Amethi.
This has been first such declaration coming from a member of the Congress high command. Assuring the people of Rahul Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency, Priyanka said that Congress would come to power and Congress chief will become the Prime Minister of the country. “We will win this Lok Sabha election and Rahulji will become PM,” Priyanka Gandhi told Congress workers while addressing the party’s booth level meeting in Amethi.
However, Priyanka’s claim may ruffle many feathers in the opposition camp which seems to be fragmented over backing the Congress chief as the prime ministerial candidate if such a situation arises.
Apart from the support of RJD’s Tejaswi Yadav, DMK’s MK Stalin, JD(S) Deve Gowda and Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy, Rahul’s candidature has not been backed by any other leader of the opposition bloc. Instead, a number of prominent opposition face like BSP chief Mayawati, Trinamool chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and NCP chief Sharad Pawar have expressed their Prime ministerial ambition at one point or the other.
Priyanka Gandhi, who arrived on a two-day visit of Amethi and Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituencies of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi -- to mobilize grassroots workers, also discussed ‘Mission UP’ at closed-door interactions with booth-level workers for around two hours at the A H Inter College in Musafirkhana.
According to a Congress leader privy to the booth level meeting, Priyanka exhorted the Congress cadre to reach out to the electorate by visiting their houses and expose the ‘lies’ and ‘failures’ of Modi government.
She called upon the party workers to put in their best to brighten up party’s prospects in the polls.
“Rahulji has given me the task of forming the Congress government in the next assembly elections in the state. You have seen me working till 4 am. I will work harder to accomplish this task,” a worker quoted Priyanka as telling the Congress party’s workers.
Clad in a blue cotton sari, microphone in her hand, the Congress leader took centre stage among local leaders, taking feedback from them. The Amethi constituency has long remained a Congress stronghold. BJP has fielded Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani to challenge the might of Gandhis on their turf yet again.
Speaking on BJP nominee Smriti Irani being pitted against her brother, Priyanka Gandhi claimed that while she had been visiting Amethi since childhood and it was like a second home to her, the union minister came to Amethi for just for "timepass" as she had nothing to do with the constituency.
Asked if PM’s announcement about ‘Mission Shakti’ accomplishment was the politicisation of the issue, the Congress leader said there was hardly anything left which was not being politicised by the PM.
Priyanka Gandhi will be visiting Rae Bareli on Thursday and after taking a night halt in her mother’s constituency, she is expected to move to Ayodhya on Friday.