Bowing to the demands of party veterans not to kick off the campaign for the coming UP assembly elections during Pitra Paksh, Congress general secretary and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday agreed that the party's `Pratigya Yatra’ and rallies at all zonal headquarters would start from Navratri in the second week of October.
‘The Pioneer’ had reported about the anger amongst the veterans over Vadra’s decision to hold the first rally in Meerut on September 29 and to start the ‘Pratigya Yatra’ from Gandhi Jayanti, both falling during `Pitra Paksh’, as this period was inauspicious to start any new thing.
The decision was taken by Vadra in a meeting with senior leaders, including UP Congress Ajay Kumar `Lallu and Congress Legislative Party leader Aradhana Mishra `Mona’ at Sheila Kaul’s residence here on Tuesday morning.
Besides interacting on proposed rallies, ‘Pratigya Yatra’ and other agenda of the party's campaign, Vadra also discussed other issues related to polls, including the identification of seats on which the party had high probability of winning. The meeting also discussed the route and programmes to be held during the Pratigya Yatra. This yatra is slated to cover around 12,000 km and will touch all the 403 assembly constituencies. The leaders also finalised the strategy to set up war rooms in around 100 assembly constituencies in the first phase.
After meeting with the core committee, Vadra postponed her other meeting at UPCC in view of the developments in Punjab.
Meanwhile, the UP Congress on Tuesday staged demonstrations across the state to demand a judicial probe into the Pratapgarh incident and withdrawal of cases against Congress leaders.
Former Congress MP Pramod Tiwari and CLP leader Aradhana Mishra have been booked in five cases after violence broke out during a government function in Pratapgarh on Saturday in which BJP MP Sangam Lal Gupta was reportedly injured.
The state government had on Sunday placed circle officer Lalganj (Pratapgarh) Jagmohan Singh under suspension for failing to deploy adequate police force at Sangipur development block where leaders of the two political parties were scheduled to attend the event.
Denying their involvement in the incident, the Congress leaders said that trouble began when one of the supporters of Gupta snatched the mike and raised slogans. The Congress leaders staged a protest and submitted memorandums to the chief minister through the district magistrates with their list of demands.