Priyanka not to contest LS poll ‘Reviving party in UP first priority’

| | Lucknow
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Priyanka not to contest LS poll ‘Reviving party in UP first priority’

Friday, 15 February 2019 | PNS | Lucknow

Congress general secretary in-charge of east Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, turned down partymen’s appeal for contesting the coming parliamentary elections on the plea that her first task was to revive the party in the state. “Challenge is 2022. I will put in all efforts along with you all,” Priyanka said.

Interestingly, majority of the leaders who met Priyanka in the last three days urged her to contest the Lok Sabha poll and even came up with preferred seats like Fatehpur, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and even Varanasi.

But Priyanka politely declined the suggestions, saying that if she contested the poll, her attention on other seats would be diverted and her primary objective of reviving the party would be defeated.

A senior Congress leader, who was part of the Gorakhpur delegation that met Priyanka late on Wednesday night, told `The Pioneer’ that they suggested that the party should not have any alliance and turncoats be avoided while finalising candidates. He also said that the proposed alliance with Mahan Dal was objected to as it would not serve any purpose.

“In 2014 also, the Congress gave five seats to Mahan Dal but it did not yield the desired results,” he said.

The leader also informed Priyanka that Om Prakash Rajbhar of Suheldeo Bharatiya Samaj Party was groomed by the Congress but he later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party as its popularity grew in eastern UP.

The leader also suggested to Priyanka to contest from Lucknow Lok Sabha seat against Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, as it would send a message to the voters and impact seats like Gorakhpur and Varanasi.

“Priyanka said that all leaders were inviting her to contest from their areas but she had a huge task before her to complete,” he said.

Priyanka, along with AICC general secretary in-charge of west UP, Jyotiraditya Scindia, interacted with local Congress leaders of all parliamentary seats during the last three days in Lucknow.

Scindia would interact with leaders of Lok Sabha in National Capital Region in Gautam Buddha Nagar later on.

While speaking to leaders from different Lok Sabha constituencies, Priyanka said, “Rahul had been asking me to take over responsibility of UP since 2015 which I kept on declining. Now I have gathered strength to accept the challenge.”

The Congress poster leader also admitted that her moving alone and waving at crowds would not translate into votes. “You need to have a robust organisation to convert the support into votes,” she opined.

The AICC general secretary said that focus on booth level teams would be important as booth committees were crucial for wining elections. Priyanka also expressed annoyance over the jumbo size of the UP Congress Committee.

“Here in UP you have a jumbo-sized outfit structure. It’s like UNO. It needs to be streamlined and made more efficient so that responsibilities can directly be accounted for,” she commented.

Priyanka also suggested to senior leaders to focus on building organisation from where ever they wanted to contest the polls.

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