Congress takes first step to conquer Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: The Congress kicked off its campaign for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections, with the party’s top leaders on Saturday embarking on a three-day ‘bus yatra’ under the banner of ‘27 Saal UP Behaal’.

Party chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi flagged off the yatra.
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, chief ministerial  candidate Sheila Dikshit, PCC chief Raj Babbar, campaign committee chief Sanjay  Sinh, MP Pramod Tiwari, CLP leader Pradeep Mathur, MP P.L. Punia and others have  joined the yatra, which will cover 568 km in the three districts of Moradabad, Shahjahanpur and Kanpur. The party will target the BJP, SP and the BSP.

At least 27 leaders will be part of the yatra, including five senior vice-presidents, five campaign committee members and 10 coordination committee members.
The party is yet to reveal the number of seats it will contest on its own and its pre-poll alliances.

The yatra is aimed at reaching out to the public and highlighting the failure of successive governments in Uttar Pradesh in the past 27 years, ever since the Congress was voted out of power in the state.

Castes and communal polarisation continues to play a decisive role in the elections in Uttar Pradesh, which has given at least nine Prime Ministers to the country since Independence, including incumbent Narendra Modi, who represents Varanasi in the Lok Sabha.

The last 27 years have seen the rule of the BJP, BSP and the Samajwadi Party but this has not changed the profile of the most populous state, which remains in the grip of caste and muscle power.

The Congress, which got only two Lok Sabha seats from the state, is hoping that anti-incumbency against the state government and the Centre will make it relevant again. It has hired poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who had worked for Mr Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, to revive the party in UP.

The yatra will cover Ghaziabad, Hapur, Amroha, Moradabad, Rampur, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Hardoi, Kannauj and Kanpur and the leaders will address three to four  public meetings in the three days.

It will halt at Moradabad on the first day (July 23), covering important places in western Uttar Pradesh, and proceed to Shahjahanpur, covering Rampur and Bareilly, and on the third day it will cover Hardoi, Kannauj and then end in Kanpur.

Mr Azad, the AICC general secretary in charge of UP, said the party will aim to form a government in UP. The party does not believe in dividing people on religious and caste lines and seeks to unite them instead, he said.