After winning three States of the Hindi heartland — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — by raising issues of farmers and promising loan waiver schemes for them, the Congress is eyeing a similar strategy in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections.
During the 2017 UP assembly polls, the party had feebly started a similar campaign — coined ‘27 Saal, UP Behal’ — to highlight the plight of the state and its people in the absence of Congress Government. It had also promised to waive farm loans and slash power bills to half. However, just before the Lok Sabha elections, Congress decided to join hands with Samajwadi Party and went to the hustings with disastrous results as both the parties could win only seven seats.
Sources said that for taking up core problems of farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leaders will attend the ‘Kisan Ekta Sammelan’ being organised by Bharatiya Kisan Union (A) at Ravindralaya in Lucknow on Monday.
“In the previous assembly election, we came out with a plan to waive agri-loans besides slashing the power bills of farmers to half but our alliance with Samajwadi Party derailed the agenda. We have once again started consultation with different farmers’ unions in UP so that all their problems can be incorporated in our manifesto for 2019,” UPCC general secretary Vinod Mishra said.