The bus the Congress leaders are travelling in carries large pictures of the party's icons including Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi besides others.
The Congress kick-started its UP poll campaign on Saturday, with party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi flagging off the three-day bus yatra from the party headquarters in the national capital. The party which has been out of power in UP for the past 27 years, launched the yatra with the theme "27 saal, UP behaal" painted on the bus carrying the party leaders.
"It has been 27 years since Congress has been out of power and during this period, BJP, BSP and SP ruled the state and divided the people in the name of community and religion. But we will try to unite everybody and form a government which will not give preference to any particular community," said UP Congress chief Raj Babbar underlining the party's line of action for the crucial election.
The bus the Congress leaders are travelling in carries large pictures of the party's icons including Nehru, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi besides others. Several state Congress leaders, including Pramod Tiwari and Sanjay Sinh, are also onboard the bus yatra, which is scheduled to undertake 26 such trips in the run-up to the election.
The party's 78-year-old chief ministerial mascot, Sheila Dixit, however, already seems to be proving some sort of a bad omen. While the platform mounted on a truck on which she stood along with other party leaders at a procession in Lucknow on July 17 had crashed, on Saturday, she took ill soon after the bus yatra took off and had to return to Delhi.
AICC general secretary incharge of UP Ghulam Nabi Azad and state unit chief Raj Babbar carried on with the journey which would cover over 500 km over three days to reach Kanpur where they would address a public meeting. Party leaders are scheduled to hold public meetings and rallies at various places en route, too.
The Congress party has virtually been reduced to a stump in the state. The party won just two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and a mere 27 of the 403 assembly seats in the 2012 elections. Through this yatra, the party hopes to boost the morale of the party workers.
With Azad, Dikshit, Babbar and Sanjay Sinh taking the lead, Congress is trying to project the secular fabric of the party besides highlighting the 'misgovernance' by successive UP governments.
"Only Congress can be the answer in UP where other parties are trying to divide people on the basis of religion," said Azad. "The yatra will speak about the failure and misgovernance of successive governments in the last 27 years. Through a series of campaigns the party wants to reach out to every voter at least three or four times," he said.
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