Priyanka to kick off public rally in Modi’s homeland

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has chosen to address her first public rally in Prime Minister Modi’s home state Gujarat on February 28.

The rally to be held at Trimandir Ground in Adalaj will be also addressed by her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhi and mother Sonia Gandhi, who was off the public speeches since November when she addressed rallies in Telangana during the Assembly polls.

Priyanka’s decision to kick off the public appearances from Gujarat is to signal her intent to take on the Prime Minister and BJP President Amit Shah on their home turf. In fact, she is under a tremendous pressure from the party workers to take on Modi from Varanasi in the Lok Sabha elections, though she has indicated to focus on her responsibility to work for the party in 41 constituencies of Uttar Pradesh assigned to her instead of a plunge into the polls.

The Adalaj rally will be followed by a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) at the Sardar Patel Memorial Trust building in Ahmedabad, 60 years since it had met in the city. The Adalaj rally follows Rahul’s February 14 address in the tribal Lal Dungri village in Valsad district.

Adalaj is the same village where Priyanka’s grandmother Indira Gandhi in 1980, her father Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 and her mother Sonia Gandhi in 2004 started their campaign and romped home to power. Party spokesman and Gujarat leader Shaktisinh Gohil said the Adalaj rally will be the biggest in Gujarat in recent times.

Priyanka’s entry has energised Congress ‘troops’ ahead of LS polls, says Congress leader Salman Khurshid.