Keep UP addl chief secy away from poll process: Cong to EC

The Congress is stepping up the pressure before the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Party representatives have demanded from the Election Commission of India to keep Uttar Pradesh additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Awasthi away from the poll process of the state Assembly so that he does not “affect” it.

The UP Congress raised the demand during its meeting with chief election commissioner Sushil Chandra and elections commissioners Rajeev Kumar and Anoop Chandra Pandey.

The CEC and the two ECs reached Lucknow on Tuesday evening and are slated to take stock of the state’s poll preparedness over the next few days. The poll panel’s 13-member delegation is on a three-day visit to the state.

In the last couple of weeks, the Congress is trying to corner the BJP government in the state.

It has made serious charges against the functioning of the government and issues that are plaguing the state.

Meanwhile as the elections approach, Congress general Secretary Priyanka Gandhi is on an overdrive to woo the women voters. On Wednesday, she interacted with women at Sirsaganj in UP’s Firozabad district and assured them that her party would initiate several measures for the welfare of women if it came to power. She said, “Women have to face a lot of problems in their lives... The political parties only make tall promises at the time of the polls and forget them after the elections are over.”

The Congress is making women power as its tag line and launched that slogan “ladki hoon lad sakti hoon’. They have gone ahead and announced reservations to women candidates in the ticket distribution.