After holding marathon meetings with leaders from districts in the last three days, AICC general secretary and UP East incharge Priyanka Gandhi directed senior Congress leaders, including state chief Raj Babbar, to visit their respective constituencies and strengthen the party.
"Go and work in the field by strengthening relations with locals and learning about their core problems and get them resolved by the authorities,” directed Priyanka to 20-odd senior Congress leaders.
Party sources said that expressing concern over inputs from local leaders that senior leaders were not to be found in the constitunecies, Priyanka asked leaders to organise public welfare programmes in their respective areas and strengthen the party base.
To keep a tab on these leaders, Priyanka also directed senior leaders to update her on a weekly basis about the work carried out in the constituencies on her WhatsApp number.
The 20 Congress leaders who were initially directed to work on the ground included state Congress chief Raj Babbar, Rajya Sabha MP Panna Lal Punia (seeking ticket for his son Tanuj Punia), former UPA government ministers – Jitin Prasada, RPN Singh, Pardeep Jain 'Aditya’, former MPs Rajaram Pal, Dr Vinay Kumar Pandey `Vinnu’, Praveen Aron, Annu Tandon, Nirmal Khatri, Harendra Malik and Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh, Pramod Tewari, along with Imran Masood, Harendra Agarwal, Virendra Singh, Congress legislative party leader Ajay Kumar `Lallu’, Rajeev Shukla, Naseemudeen Siddiqui and Ranjeet Singh `Judev’.
Besides, another AICC general secretary and UP West incharge Jyotiraditya Scindia also gave similar directions to at least a dozen senior leaders asking them to work in their regions and update him on his WhatsApp number.
Meanwhile, Priyanka and Scindia will meet leaders of the remaining parliamentary seats including Kushinagar, two districts of Bundelkhand region and those in NCR region in the coming days. These districts could not be taken up in Lucknow.
Sources also confirmed that Priyanka was likely to return to Lucknow some time next week, and interact with leaders of all frontal outfits like Mahila Congress, Sewa Dal, Youth Congress, National Students' Union of India along with cells of the UPCC.
She will be taking feedback about the existing organisation, working of leaders and how they can fight with full strength and win the Lok Sabha elections.
