On Friday, the Congress party released its manifesto for Uttar Pradesh ahead of the assembly elections and claimed that only the Congress could give a new vision to the youth in the state. “The youth in Uttar Pradesh needs a new vision and only the Congress can give that vision to the state,” former party president Rahul Gandhi said.

Meanwhile, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has effectively admitted that she is the Chief Minister's face of Congress in the state of Uttar Pradesh. When a journalist asked who will be the Congress CM face in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi said, “Can you see any other face? I am the one who is visible everywhere, then why is that question even coming”.

That particular part can be seen at the 38-minute mark onwards in the video.

She also said that her party in Uttar Pradesh wants the focus to be on development and not on negative propaganda based on caste or communalism that is going around. “The Congress party does not want to get involved in polarization”, she said responding to a question about anti-Hindu claims made by Congress’ new ally Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan.

“Khan is not a part of Congress Party. So he can say whatever he wants. Congress won’t take any responsibility for his acts”, she said (39:45). This is just two days after Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, chief of the Ittihad-e-Millat Council extended his support to the Congress party and said that ‘Priyanka Gandhi’ and ‘Rahul Gandhi’ were secular leaders and that Muslims would stand by the party in the state.

In January, Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan was seen brazenly provoking Muslims against Hindus. While addressing a crowd of thousands of Muslims in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, the radical Islamist brazenly threatened the Hindus in India that the day Muslims rage flares, they would have nowhere to escape.

Addressing a press conference at the launch ‘Bharti Vidhan’, Rahul Gandhi specifically mentioned that the vision document was not hollow words but had been drafted after consulting youth whose views are reflected in it. The party is going to the polls with the ‘focus on youth and women’ and has announced that it will reserve 40 percent of tickets for women in Uttar Pradesh.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking a U-turn

A day after Congress party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra declared herself the Chief Ministerial candidate of Uttar Pradesh in the 2022 State Assembly elections, she reversed her stand, claiming that it was a “statement made in irritation.”

“I am not saying that I am the (CM) face (of Congress in the Uttar Pradesh elections)… I said that (you can see my face everywhere) in irritation because you all were asking the same question again & again” Priyanka Gandhi Vadra told ANI.

While her connotation was extremely evident when she implied that since it is only her face that is seen everywhere, then naturally she would be the CM face for Uttar Pradesh, she has now said that she made that statement out of “irritation”. One also has to wonder why she would get “irritated” when asked a question that is a natural inquisition given that Congress has not announced a CM face for Uttar Pradesh while for BJP, it has clearly been Yogi Adityanath. In fact, even for SP, it is clearly Akhilesh Yadav.

Priyanka Gandhi has been spotted aggressively campaigning for the forthcoming state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. She is leading the Congress campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, which begins on February 10. Because of Covid, the Election Commission has prohibited political parties from holding rallies and roadshows, but it has permitted door-to-door and virtual campaigning.

While Priyanka Gandhi is busy engaging with women and promising to improve women’s status in society, Dr. Priyanka Maurya, the state vice-president of the Mahila Congress in Uttar Pradesh since 2019 and the face of the party’s women’s manifesto “Shakti Vidhan,” has made serious allegations against Congress. She claimed that the party’s ticket allocation in the state was manipulated and that Congress denied her an election ticket because she refused to pay a bribe.

References:

opindia.com - OpIndia Staff