The party is expecting 60,000 party workers to converge in the UP state capital to celebrate Priyanka taking charge of campaigning at the booth level.
Congress has finally obliged a section of its cadres, who were demanding a political role for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (44) daughter of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP). She will make her debut in a campaign starting on July 29 from Lucknow, along with older brother Rahul, the vice-president of the party.
The party is expecting 60,000 party workers to converge in the UP state capital to celebrate Priyanka taking charge of campaigning at the booth level. The party's rally will be also addressed by CM candidate Sheila Dikshit and UP Congress chief Raj Babbar. All state office-bearers and district Congress presidents have been asked to reach Lucknow.
This will be followed by a massive road show by Sonia Gandhi in Varanasi on August 2, where she would be introducing Dikshit and Babbar to the people. The state Congress leaders are mobilising people for Sonia's road show that will end with a public meeting, with the hope that the turnout will be no less than a lakh people.
The Congress on Thursday also announced a three-day "Bus Yatra" from Saturday to campaign on the slogan "24 Saal UP Behal" in 10 districts of Western and Central UP. Mrs Gandhi will flag off the yatra, planned on the lines of the one carried out by the Congress with JD(U) of Nitish Kumar, as suggested by strategist Prashant Kishor.
In a related development, the Congress also appointed division-wise 18 campaign committee chairmen, including 5-time MLA Ajay Rai who contested against Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha election for Varanasi. Prominent among those named to take charge of the campaign at the division level include former MP Rashid Alvi (Moradabad), former MP Au Tandon (Lucknow), Harender Malik (Saharanpur), Harshwardhan Valmiki (Agra), Hasan Arif Ansari (Aligarh), Fazle Masood (Bareily), Ram Asrey Prasad (Kanpur), ex-MP Pradip Jain Aditya (Jhansi) and Surendra Goyal (Meerut).
Rahul has given his nod to the places selected by Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad for Priyanka to campaign and he has indicated that he would try be alongside her at most of the places. The party leaders believe that rallies of the brother-sister duo will be a gamechanger that will attract the people of the state and help relive memories of family stalwarts Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Meanwhile, Sonia and Rahul have together decided to let the chief ministers of Uttarakhand and Manipur, that also go to polls with UP and Punjab early next year, to decide the dates and contours of the poll campaign in their states. As regards Goa, the fifth state slated for polls early next year, Congress in-charge General Secretary Digvijaya Singh has been asked to draw up the campaign strategy in consultation with state Congress chief Luizinho Faleiro, the party sources said.
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