Fulfilling a long-standing prophecy of Congress watchers, and a long-standing demand of Congress workers, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will finally step into the heat and dust of Assembly elections across Uttar Pradesh.
A list of so-called ‘star campaigners’ includes Priyanka’s name, suggesting she may finally break with tradition and campaign beyond the Gandhi family’s pocket boroughs, so to speak, of Amethi, held by Rahul, and Rae Bareli, represented by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has so far held back from actively participating in the five-state elections, is also one of the 40 star campaigners notified by the Congress for Punjab and Goa, but sources at her 10 Janpath residence said she will not campaign in either of those states.
Suggesting that the bitter battle within the Samajwadi Party (SP) is not yet over, the party’s list of its own 40 star campaigners submitted to the Election Commission (EC) has one conspicuous absence: Shivpal Yadav, uncle of Chief Minister Akhilesh.
Political parties are mandated to file the list of their star campaigners, as travel costs of these persons are not included to the cost of a candidate’s election expenditure. Each candidate’s campaign expense for the upcoming elections has been capped at Rs 40 lakh.
In Lucknow, following the alliance between the Congress and the SP, poll strategists have been busy coining a slogan for the joint campaign. Sources said both parties were emphasising the point that Akhilesh and Rahul were both “Apne UP Ke Ladke” (Sons of the soil), pitted against the “outsider” Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo leading the BJP campaign.
While Akhilesh was raised in Lucknow, alliance strategists are reminding people that the Gandhi-Nehru family has its roots in Allahabad.
Congress strategist Prashant Kishore, who has modelled the UP campaign on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s, had coined the slogan “Bihari vs Bahari” to blunt PM Modi’s edge in that election.
Priyanka Gandhi’s role will also assuage partymen, who have long called for her playing a more active role in elections. Though Akhilesh’s wife Dimple doesn’t figure as a star campaigner for her party, there remains the possibility of her sharing stage with Priyanka. The two women have been instrumental in saving the alliance, which almost came apart over seat-sharing.
Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi will attend few combined rallies; former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also among the star campaigners list.
While the Congress has lined up all its senior leaders for campaigning in Goa, its star campaigner list also includes local leaders such as former CMs Pratap Sing Rane, Luizinho Faleiro and Digambar Kamat, as well as former union ministers Eduardo Faleiro and Ramakant Khalap, and Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik, MK Shaikh, Pramod Salgaocar and Chandrakaht Kavalekar.
The Shiv Sena has given a list of 20 led by Uddhav Thackeray and Aditya Thackeray, while the Nationalist Congress Party has 31 star campaigners led by its president Sharad Pawar, his daughter Supriya Sule, who is a Member of Parilament, and its general secretaries Praful Patel, Tariq Anwar, and DP Tripathi.
In Uttarakhand, neither the Congress nor the BJP, the two main contenders, have submitted any list of star campaigners.
The SP’s list of 40 star campaigners includes Kironmay Nanda, Azam Khan, Ramgopal Yadav, Naresh Agarwal, Jaya Bachchan and Rajendra Chowdhury.
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 "Priyanka Gandhi Vadra")
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