Priyan a ta es political plunge, named P General Secretary East
New Delhi/amethi: Playing his surprise trump card, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday appointed his sister Priyanka Gandhi the party General Secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the SP-BSP alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls had pushed the Congress into a corner ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Priyanka Gandhi’s appointment, a gamble by Rahul Gandhi throwing her into full-fledged politics, is aimed at galvanizing Congress cadres in the state where it has been marginalised over the years and where the BJP won a whopping 71 of the 80 seats Lok Sabha seats in 2014. Shortly after the appointment, Rahul Gandhi told reporters that naming Priyanka Gandhi and Jotiraditya Scindia as General Secretaries for Uttar Pradesh was a “big step” to spread the party’s “real” ideology for poor and weaker sections and to rebuild its base. She will now ensure that a Congress Chief Minister gets to rule the state, he added.
However, Gandhi sought to strike a conciliatory note towards the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), saying the Congress will cooperate with them to defeat the BJP in whatever ways possible. They are welcome to talk to us, he said.
With this, Priyanka Gandhi, married to businessman Robert Vadra and mother of two children, makes a full-fledged entry into politics casting aside her earlier role that was mainly confined to the constituencies of Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi). From the first week of February she will assume her new charge in eastern Uttar Pradesh, considered the home turf of Chief Minister and BJP’S ‘Hindutva’ poster-boy Yogi Adityanath.
In an organisational shake-up ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the party also announced the appointment of Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP from Guna in Madhya Pradesh, as the Congress General Secretary in charge of western Uttar Pradesh.
Speculation of Priyanka Gandhi contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from her mother’s constituency Rae Bareli immediately gained ground.