TAKING THE LEAD

Come Diwali and Priyanka plans to make UP her home and battleground in an effort to create a template for Congress revival

- KAUSHIK DEKA

AT THE END OF DIWALI, as winter begins to set in on the plains, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi plans to move base to Lucknow, capital of the state she is in charge of: Uttar Pradesh. In anticipation of her arrival, the state Congress headquarters is being spruced up, in time for the party’s December 28 Foundation Day. It will also be the day the younger Gandhi scion will be launching the party’s campaign for the 2022 assembly election in UP.

Priyanka has been working towards this end ever since she formally joined politics in January 2019. The 48-year-old has made UP her battleground, from where she hopes to initiate the Congress’s revival. She aims to make the party a fighting force in the state in time for the 2022 assembly election. In the process, she wants UP to become the template for other Congress general secretaries to emulate in their states.

Things did not start auspiciously, though. Her very first press conference, scheduled for February 14, 2019, had to be called off after a terror attack killed 40 CRPF soldiers in Pulwama in Kashmir. It was never rescheduled. Despite her whirlwind campaign in the run-up to the 2019 general election, she could not rescue the Congress from a crushing defeat in the state. The party won just one of UP’s 80 seats—Sonia Gandhi in Raebareli—and suffered the humiliation of losing family pocket borough Amethi.

This year, the rumblings within the party have grown only stronger, with Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit in March, Sachin Pilot’s revolt in July and a let­ter by 23 Congress leaders in August to party president Sonia Gandhi urging for a more “visible, available leadership” and an organizational overhaul of the party.