No Alliance, Congress Will Contest All Seats in UP: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

Congress will not align with any other party for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Sunday. Ms Vadra said the party would contest all 403 seats alone in the state, 40 per cent of which will be offered to women. 

Addressing the Congress party's 'Pratigya Sammelan-Lakshya 2022' in West UP's Bulandshahr, she also said that only Congress workers will contest from the party ticket. "We will nominate only Congress workers for all seats. If Congress has to win, it will win on its own," she said.

Dismissing speculations of back-channel negotiations with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajvadi Party (SP), the 49-year-old leader said her party has been fighting alone in the state. "Be it Covid-19 or any other crisis, it is the Congress workers that came to help people. Did SP or BSP fight for Unnao, Lakhimpur or Hathras? But we did!" she said.

Emphasising that the electoral contest can only be won by strengthening the party at the booth level, she called upon Congress workers to bolster the booth committees. She asked party workers to be active on social media and post all party activities on various social networking platforms.

Taking a jibe at the ruling BJP, she said the saffron party has no respect for the freedom movement as its leaders did not shed blood and sweat for the country's independence, and added that only leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and BR Ambedkar envisioned freedom for the country.

कांग्रेस ने पूरे 5 साल अपने संगठन के बल पर भाजपा की महंगाई और लूट की नीतियों के खिलाफ संघर्ष किया है।

कांग्रेस पार्टी संगठन के बल पर मजबूती से चुनाव लड़ेगी।

लक्ष्य 2022
पदाधिकारी प्रतिज्ञा सम्मेलन, बुलंदशहर pic.twitter.com/kQDazAqp0h

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) November 14, 2021

Congress had won just 7 out of the 403 assembly seats in the state in the last assembly elections. More recently, Rahul Gandhi lost his Amethi seat to BJP's Smriti Irani in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. 

Ms Vadra has been actively campaigning in the state to revive the party's fortunes. She has been making headlines for advocating for women, farmers and religious minorities. "I want to tell the women that I will fight for them, the Congress party will fight for them," she had said at the Gorakhpur stronghold of the state's Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath.