Even when the Congress high command has withheld the announcement of the party’s candidates from Rae Bareli and Amethi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to contest from Rae Bareli and to ensure her victory, her mother and sitting MP Sonia Gandhi has chalk out a strategy.
Sonia has constituted a team of ‘Special 24’ which will work as per her plan and ensure a grand entry for Priyanka into Lok Sabha by retaining her mother’s seat and winning the election with a huge margin. The coordination committee of ‘Special 24’ includes members from every assembly segment, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee, All India Congress Committee, District Congress Committee and senior Congress leaders. Along with this, five big faces of Congress will be in backup. Prominent among them is Sunil Kanugolu, who will play the role of Chanakya in view of the electoral equations of Rae Bareli, along with the party’s information technology war room.
The decision regarding who will contest from Rae Bareli is in the hands of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge. In the meeting of the Congress Central Core Committee last Saturday night, the party handed over the authority of finalising the ticket to him. There has been an increase in activity regarding ‘Mission Rae Bareli’ for the last two days. The Delhi Core Committee is active along with the District Congress Committee. Everyone’s eyes are fixed on the announcement of the ticket from Rae Bareli. At present, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s name is considered to be final, but those responsible for announcing the candidate are still silent.
Besides Sonia Gandhi, the ‘Special 24’ coordination committee for Rae Bareli elections has her representative KL Sharma, Congress District president Pankaj Tiwari, Congress City president Dheeraj Srivastava, Sushil Pasi, Harchandpur Surendra Vikram Singh, Dr Manish Singh Chauhan, Sudha Dwivedi, Atul Singh, Sahabsharan Paswan, Shatruhan Sonkar, Sarita Gupta, Mohammad Ilyas, Kalyan Singh Gandhi and VK Shukla
According to sources in the party, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, DK Shivakumar, Uttar Pradesh in-charge Avinash Pandey, UP Congress general secretary Aradhana Mishra will play an important role in the elections as strategists.
The sources further confirmed that survey expert Sunil Kanugolu is one of the important strategists of the Congress. The Telangana elections were fought as per his strategy and the Congress got great success. Kanugolu will also play a big role in the Rae Bareli election. He had conducted the first survey of Rae Bareli after which there was a consensus on the name of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as party candidate from Rae Bareli. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra also, Kanugolu’s team had reached Rae Bareli to conduct a survey.
“Congress is fully prepared in Rae Bareli. The margin of victory in this election will be big. Guidelines have been given to everyone. The party is working on the strategy along with campaigning from booth to ward,” disclosed Vinay Dwivedi, media incharge of Congress in Rae Bareli.
It may be mentioned that last Saturday, Mallikarjun Kharge had talked about giving a surprise in Delhi, due to which discussions kept gaining momentum in the political corridors of Rae Bareli. Some people also kept talking about Varun Gandhi contesting from Amethi and Rahul Gandhi from Rae Bareli. However, Congress officials denied any such possibility.
