Priyanka Gandhi Vadra On Congress's UP Strategy: Top Quotes

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today spoke in detail with NDTV about her party's strategy for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections to be held next month. Earlier today, Ms Gandhi and her brother and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi released a manifesto for young people in India's most populous state. The Congress's "Youth Manifesto" promised to generate employment and start jobs schemes, among others.

Here are the top quotes from Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's interview with NDTV:

• In the last 2.5 years, if you look at the politics of UP, it is really the Congress party that has been fighting for cause of the people. Whether it was Unnao, whether it was Sonbhadra, whether it was during CAA NRC, it was really the Congress party that came out on the streets and fought.
• Despite not being power for 31 years in Uttar Pradesh, there were people on the ground who had still been our Congress workers, old workers, who had been there carrying the flag, no matter what.
• I would concede that our organisation was extremely weak 2 years ago when I went there (Uttar Pradesh). Which is why for the last 2 years, we, our primary focus was to rebuild our organisation there.
• Nobody shirks accountability or responsibility for things. And I think my brother has time and again said that. What we have to understand about the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh is that the decline of the Congress party in UP is not something that happened in the last 5 years or 6 years.
• You can't assume that I will be the Congress Chief Minister candidate. I am saying I am the general secretary of UP, the responsibility for UP is mine and I am dealing with it.
• "You don't know yet whether I am or not. It is an open question for now," Ms Gandhi said on being asked why she wasn't contesting the UP elections.
• We think we should bring development, and jobs, and progress into the centre of the discourse.
• I think that primarily in UP, in the Congress, one of the big changes is, that that access has opened up. And the opportunity has opened up. In many cases, there were people in the party, who had enjoyed positions, etc, who had much better access, much better opportunity and in many ways, prevented others from rising.