- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN National Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday (14) said her party will not make any alliance for the 2022 assembly elections in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and will contest alone in all 403 seats.
The party unit in the state tweeted the same day saying Vadra made the declaration on the plea of the party workers.
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Ruling out an electoral tie-up with Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the two major players in the state politics, Vadra said they were not seen anywhere when rape cases in Unnao in 2017 and Hathras in 2020 (here the victim was killed) rocked the country and it was only the Congress which was fighting for the people.
Sources in the grand-old party cited Vadra as saying that the party fought for people’s agenda over the last five years and added that on the basis of its organisational strength, the party would go to the polls alone and give an opportunity to the cadre.
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Addressing Congress workers at the Pratigya Sammelan – Lakshya 2022 in Anoopshahr in Bulandshahr in western UP, Vadrea stressed on the importance of the Uttar Pradesh polls for the party, calling it a “do-or-die” situation.
She held talks with around 7,400 party workers from 14 districts of the state in Bulandshahr.
Vadra’s announcement assumes significance as in the recent weeks, the Congress was assumed to be inclining towards the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Jayant Chaudhury, grandson of former Indian prime minister Chaudhury Charan Singh.
Vadra and Chaudhury were seen travelling together to New Delhi from state capital Lucknow in a plane of the Chhattisgarh government, triggering speculation. The Congress is currently in power in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
Emphasising that the electoral contest can only be won by strengthening the party at the booth level, Vadra called upon the Congress workers to bolster the booth committees.
She asked the party cadre to be active on social media and post all party-related activities on various social-networking platforms.
The Congress made an alliance with SP in the 2017 assembly elections and it failed miserably. The grand-old party could win only seven seats out of 114 ones it contested. The Bharatiya Janata Party swept the elections and its chief minister Yogi Adityanath will seek a re-election next year.
It has also been routed in India’s most important political state in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well. The party is desperately looking to make a strong comeback in the state ahead of the 2024 general elections.
