Scheduled to visit poll-bound Uttar Pradesh for three days from Friday, Congress general secretary and party’s UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to face a host of organisational challenges, especially the growing dissent amongst the party veterans.
The Congress leader is likely to interact with different groups of the faction-ridden party at UP Congress Committee headquarters on Mall Avenue but her first challenge will be to strengthen the party's poor grip on the ground in the country’s most politically vibrant and populous state.
Among the shocks that she will be faced with are a non-existent organisation at the grassroots level, dwindling public support to the party, severe infighting among party ranks and a total loss of direction on the eve of Assembly elections. Interestingly, many dissidents groups are hoping that they would also get a patient hearing from Priyanka during which they could communicate how her secretary, Sandeep Singh, and UP Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu are weakening the party by sidelining certain sections, thereby hampering the grand old party’s poll prospects in 2022.
They maintained that the party put up a very poor show in the recent block pramukh polls, winning just four seats, which was an indicator of Lallu’s poor stewardship.
The three block pramukhs won their seats in veteran Congressman Pramod Tewari’s constituency while the fourth block pramukh seat was won in Amethi MLC Deepak Singh's area.
However, the programme released by the UPCC on Thursday evening cleared that Priyanka was not going to give any time to the dissidents. Most of these miffed Congress leaders claimed that Lallu and Sandeep Singh tried to keep them away from the UPCC compound so that they did not expose their working to the top Congress leaders.
Infighting in the Congress has increased manifold and more and more leaders are resigning after airing their grievances against the “autocratic and casteist functioning” of UPCC chief Ajay Kumar Lallu.'
“Priyankaji's major challenge will be to make an assessment about the party organisation's infrastructure and what is going to defunct the party by the present office-bearers. If her trip remains confined to meeting Lallu and Sandeep Singh and members of their kitchen cabinet, then the fate of the Congress is in God’s hands in 2022. The Congress, which could muster just seven seats in the 2017 UP Assembly polls, faces a bleak future if the organisational situation does not improve. In fact the party should be happy if candidates manage to win two seats in the 2022 Assembly poll,” a veteran Congress leader said while stressing that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should work on bringing back party loyalists into the mainstream.
The top Congress leader’s visit comes months before the state heads to Assembly polls early next year and this happens to be her first visit to Lucknow in 18 months as she last visited the state capital in 2020. Her scheduled trips were deferred on previous occasions due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Despite the disastrous performance of Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, wherein even her brother Rahul Gandhi lost the party’s traditional seat of Amethi, Priyanka did not choose to stay in the state to revive the party and instead engaged in intermittent visits to the state like visiting Sonbhadra after the killing of tribals two years ago. Even her last visit to Lucknow in December 2019 was to meet those injured in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act
Also, her visit to Hathras last October was to meet the family of a murder victim and a series of Kisan Mahapanchayats she organised in west UP in February-March this year and taking a dip in the Sangam in Prayagraj on February 11.
Meanwhile, a UPCC communiqué released on Thursday evening said that Priyanka would reach Lucknow on Friday around midday and would be welcomed at several places between the CCS International Airport in Amausi and the UPCC headquarters.
Prior to reaching the Congress office, Priyanka will pay floral tribute to Mahatma Gandhi's statue at GPO. Once at the party office, the Congress leader will meet state committee members, district presidents and kisan leaders of several frontal organisations.
On the second day, she will start with meeting block presidents of Amethi and Rae Bareli and later speak to students taking competitive exams and fighting against recruitment scam and also committee members of Berojgar Manch. Priyanka is also scheduled to discuss strategies with ex Congress MPs, MLAs, district presidents, block pramukhs, district development council members and members of frontal outfits.