Congress leaders were in jubiliant mood after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi did not ruled out Priyanka Gandhi being projected as chief ministerial candidate for the coming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
“I too wanted Priyanka Gandhi should join Congress and come to active politics”, Rahul reportedly replied to media query whether his sister is going to lead the Party during the next polls in UP.
However, with further going into the debate, Rahul reportedly told reporters that Prashant Kishore, the man was drafting the polls strategy for the biggest state of the country, had been empowered by the local leaders of Uttar Pradesh to decide on the issue.
Sources in the Congress confirmed that soon after the news of Rahul’s above statement has been broadcasted by some electronic channel, the local Congressmen turned into jubiliant move.
“We are already demanding now for a long time that only Priyanka Gandhi could revive the Congress here in Uttar Pradesh and now proposal of her projecting as the Party’s chief ministerial candidate would definitely give us edge over all other political opponents to win and form the next government in the State”, said a senior Congress leader who remained spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee till few months back.
Another Congressman hailing from Allahabad, who earlier led demand of Priyanka given charge of the Party, said that he was happy that at last the Party’s high command had realised the potential and leadership quality of Priyanka Gandhi and is planning to give her charge of UP.
“Every Congressmen knew that only Priyanka Gandhi had that charisma which could easily take on all the Three `M’ – Modi, Mulayam and Mayawati and ensure a comeback of the Congress into the main stream and form government”, the leader replied while reacting the news.
However, sources said that some senior leaders who give up their mind to Prashant Kishore on Wednesday, tried to draw attention of the Bharatiya Janta Party’s move to polarise the voters in Uttar Pradesh.
“I had information that BJP with the help of Samajwadi Party had planned several communal riots in important towns of Uttar Pradesh soon after celebration of Holi just to communalise the atmosphere and capitalise on during the next Assembly election through vote polarization”, asserted a party sitting MP hailing from Uttar Pradesh.
“We had very clearly draw the attention of the Party’s high command to draw some specific strategy how to counter the BJP and SP’s communal agenda as well as how to tackle the Mayawati’s dalit card”, the leader said while adding that these factors should be also given top priority while taking decision that whether Priyanka Gandhi or someone else would lead the Party in the next Assembly elections.
It may be mentioned here that to plan the draw map for the next Assembly elections in the State, a high level meeting of the Congress, attended by both state and central level leaders was held in the national capital on Wednesday.
The meeting was also said to be attended by Prashant Kishore, the man who said to have designed the campaign for Bharatiya Janata Party in the last Parliament elections and for Nitish Kumar in the recent Bihar polls.
Besides deciding strategies, the leaders also discussed whether to have truck with other smaller outfits or to go it alone, to declare a chief ministerial candidate just on the patern of Bihar, to declare name of at least hundred candidates by the mid of this year and how to go ahead with their campaign amongst the public to seek their support for the oldest political outfit and ensure comeback in the State after a gap of about three decades.
Interestingly, many leaders wanted to bring Priyanka Gandhi to main lime-light by giving her charge of Uttar Pradesh and if possible, also to announce her name as the new incumbent for chief minister’s post.