Priyanka Gandhi launched the party’s 2022 poll campaign on July 16 with a strong message as she sat silently at the feet of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Lucknow.
The Congress is betting on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to revive the party’s fortunes in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections but is unlikely to declare her the chief ministerial face.
Since Priyanka became in charge of UP Congress in 2019, she had been trying to project the grand old party as an option against the regional players Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
However, the ground reality is that the Congress had emerged the fourth player in the 2017 assembly elections with just seven out of the total 403 seats and a six per cent vote share.
The reasons behind the lackluster show have been pretty much obvious, the party suffers from a weak organization and lacks a popular face with a pan-state appeal.
That explains the buzz around Priyanka, whose entry has energized the party workers and has led to a popular demand that she be named the party’s chief ministerial face.
The politically savvy leader launched the party’s 2022 poll campaign on July 16 with a strong message as she sat silently at the feet of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the heart of capital Lucknow to protest against violence in the recent panchayat polls and women’s rights.
Over the past week, the party’s social media teams trended hashtags like “PriyankaDidiAaRahiHai” and “UPKiUmmeedPriyanka”, on Twitter to build up a tempo before the visit.
The party workers were excited over Priyanka’s three-day visit, which had come after a long gap, as it reiterated the leader’s commitment to reclaim the crucial state at a time when political activity had gathered pace.
The state unit staged an impressive welcome for her at the Amausi airport and lined up the route with hoardings carrying her picture. The party’s rank and file had been missing her physical presence over the past year though Priyanka was conducting regular online interactions with the leaders and workers throughout the pandemic period.
She took up the cause of women’s safety and dignity by visiting Lakhimpur Kheri and meeting Ritu Singh and Anita Yadav, women workers of the Samajwadi Party, who were attacked by goons during filing of papers for the panchayat polls. Priyanka demanded a repoll in the Panchayat areas affected by violence and promised to take up the matter with the state Election Commission.
She also met delegations of students, who appear in various competitive exams, and assured them to raise their issues. Alongside, she also criticized PM Modi for praising the state government’s management of the second wave of the pandemic, saying the ground reality was entirely different and the hapless people suffered a lot due to the administration’s apathy.
Over the coming weeks, the party plans to stage protests across the state over price rise, unemployment and the law and order situation in UP.
CM face
Congress leaders and workers feel declaring Priyanka as the chief ministerial face can provide a significant boost to the party’s prospects in the next year’s polls. However, this is not the first time that such a demand has been raised.
In 2016, poll strategist Prashant Kishor had suggested that Priyanka be made the face for the 2017 assembly polls but she was not ready to take up that role. The Congress had then played up the “go alone” line and highlighted that absence of party-led government over the past 27 years had pushed UP behind by decades.
Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit was instead projected as the party’s chief ministerial nominee and plans were afoot to launch the Congress’ campaign when the grand old party did a U-turn and decided to fight the 2017 polls jointly with the Samajwadi Party.
The coalition was a disaster. The SP, which ruled the state from 2012-2017, came down to 47 seats and the Congress 7 against the BJP’s 312 out of the total 403 seats.
Four years later, the Congress is again pursuing the “go alone” line with Priyanka steering the party. However, in a clever move she has also hinted that the option of an alliance, pre-poll or post-poll, is open.
In 2019, party workers who had been lying low for decades, had become hopeful over reports that Priyanka would either shift to Lucknow or spend maximum time there, to focus more on the state.
That did not happen, though she made regular visits to different parts of the state, picking up people’s issues and attacking the BJP government. Yet, the Congress workers missed the kind of local presence that leaders of rival opposition parties had.
Uphill task
Priyanka’s challenge of reviving the Congress in UP is a tough one.
Priyanka, who used to manage only the two VIP parliamentary constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by her brother Rahul Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi respectively, spread her wings for the first time in 2019 when she was made in charge of half of UP along with former party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who headed the other half.
After the 2019 national elections, in which the party could only retain Rae Bareli and Rahul lost Amethi, Priyanka was given the full charge of reviving the organization in the crucial state.
Since then, she has been targeting the BJP government over different issues but still some senior leaders felt alienated and left the party. Former Unnao MP Annu Tandon joined the SP while former Union minister Jitin Prasada joined the BJP.
Organization
Resurrecting the organization remains the biggest challenge for Priyanka. During her recent visit, she asked the state leaders to further strengthen the party structure and reviewed district-wise poll preparations.
Though some work has been done over the past one year, a review of the organization barely seven months before the elections indicates the party has a lot of ground to cover.
A weak organization was linked to the party’s poor performance in the assembly bypolls and panchayat polls. Priyanka is trying to do whatever is possible for the workers. She recently held zone-wise online training sessions for workers in Prayagraj, Jhansi, and Ghaziabad, where the focus was largely on social media and booth-level teams.
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