Congress wants Priyanka Gandhi’s roadshows in Uttar Pradesh

Congress has played the Brahmin card by projecting Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial candidate.

New Delhi:

The Congress leaders want to have Priyanka Gandhi’s roadshow in different parts of Uttar Pradesh following the unprecedented response to Sonia Gandhi’s roadshow in Varanasi, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency.

While a senior UP Congress leader said, “We are planning to hold Priyanka’s road show in Gorakhpur in September,” another leader said her roadshows in different parts of Uttar Pradesh would create a favourable atmosphere for the Congress.

“Roadshows always help to know the mind and mood of the people. It is a better exercise than organising public meetings and holding rallies for which we have to bring people. Soniaji’s Varanasi roadshow had shown how people, cutting across the caste and religion lines, were excited,” they said.

A former Congress MP from the state said Muslims would vote for the Congress only if the latter attracts non-Mulsims divided in different castes. And this can be possible only by taking real issues — price rise, unempolyment and law and order situation — in Uttar Pradesh. “And our key opponents — BJP, Samajwadi Party and BSP — are on the defensive on it as people have seen their goernments in the last 27 years,” he said.

Although the Congress has played the Brahmin card by projecting Sheila Dikshit as its chief ministerial candidate, its real campaigners would be Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, who are expected to revive the party with the help of Dr Sanjay Sinh, Pramod Tiwari,Raj Babbar.

Priyanka Gandhi is a charismatic leader and easily connects with the people.This might not have translated into votes so far but politics cannot remain static and changes with the situation, state Congress leaders view.

The Congress’ strategy is to make a dent in the BJP’s upper castes support base after realising that the saffron party is in a dilemma whether to project a chief ministerial candidate fom upper castes, backard castes, most backward castes or dalits.

While Muslims cannot vote for the BJP,dalits were never core vote bank of the BJP due to the BSP. Therefore, it is relying on non Yadav OBCs.