Fancying its chances for the tough all women electoral battle in the upcoming Pithoragarh by-elections, the State unit of Congress party is planning to use the mass appeal of the Congress general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi there. The Uttarakhand Congress has sent a request to the party high command for holding a grand public meeting of Priyanka in Pithoragarh. Incidentally ,Pithoragarh is one of the very few constituencies in Uttarakhand where the numbers of women voters are equal to their male counterparts.
The data of the Election Commission shows that out of a total of 1,05,708 registered voters in Pithoragarh, 52,871 are males while 52,837 are females.
The Congress party has recently released a list of 40 star campaigners for Pithoragarh. Apart from Priyanka Gandhi, the names of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders like K C Venugopal, Ahmed Patel, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Navjot Singh Siddhu, Raj Babbar and Harish Rawat figure in the list.
The Vice President of the state unit of Congress party, Surya Kant Dhasmana said that the party has sent request for public meeting of Priyanka Gandhi in Pithoragarh.
He said other senior leaders of the party would also campaign in Pithoragarh and the final programme would be released soon.
The Congress leaders are of the view that by roping in Priyanka Gandhi for campaign, they can effectively counter the sympathy factor on which Chandra Pant, the widow of late Finance Minister Prakash Pant is banking on.
The Congress is hoping that given the mass appeal of Priyanka Gandhi, the women and young voters can be diverted towards the party.
The Congress has fielded Anju Lunthi, a two time Block Pramukh and protégé of local heavyweight Mayukh Mahar from the constituency.
Going by the ground feedback being received, many Congress leaders believe that the Congress candidate has a fair chance. The Congress leadership is also aware that the ruling BJP would use all its might to ensure victory of Chandra Pant in Pithoragarh. For BJP, the by elections are important they will also be viewed as a referendum on two and half years of rule in the state.
Interestingly the BJP had employed a similar tactics of cornering sympathy votes during the Tharali by elections held in May last year. Here the ruling party had fielded Munni Devi Shah, the widow of Magan Lal Shah whose death necessitated the by elections.
Munni Devi won the election defeating Congress candidate Jeet Ram by a margin of 1981 votes.
The Congress leaders however are of the view that by adopting a sound strategy and by raising issues of public interests effectively the party can stop juggernaut of BJP in Pithoragarh.