Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to launch the party’s poll election campaign for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections from Varanasi on October 9. Varanasi is the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress leader, who is in UP, will address her first public rally at Varanasi, reported Hindustan Times citing a senior party leader.
“Yes, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will address her first public rally at Varanasi on October 9. This is going to be a grand event. We are in the process of deciding the venue and a formal announcement will be made soon,” the party leader told the publication after attending a meeting with Priyanka Gandhi.
Priyanka arrived in Lucknow on September 27 on a five-day visit to discuss with workers and leaders the party's preparedness for next year's Assembly elections in the state. Her visit to the state came just a day after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers by inducting Jitin Prasad and six others.
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During the visit, she envisaged setting up war rooms right up to district level, aimed at receiving feedback from the ground and taking prompt decisions on emergent issues as part of the 2022 UP assembly polls strategy. The other issues that she discussed included the route of the party's ‘Pratigya Yatra’, setting up training camps for booth management and party units at the village level.
According to the report, the Congress leaders have already begun preparations for the Varanasi rally. “This is going to be a grand rally being organised to give a message of change to people across the state,” Rajesh Mishra, senior Congress leader and former Varanasi MP, was quoted as saying.
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This is her second visit to the state in September. On September 13, she wrapped up her five-day tour of UP during which she exhorted party workers to work round the clock for the next year's elections. She had told party workers in Rae Bareli that the Congress was planning to declare candidates well in time for the upcoming elections.
Congress has fought the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party. The grand old party had managed to win just seven of the 114 seats it had contested with a vote share of 6.25 percent. This time, the Congress party has already announced that it will fight the 2022 polls without aligning with any big political party.
(With inputs from PTI)
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