New Delhi, Jan 24 : A day after the Rahul Gandhi appointed his sister Priyanka Gandhi as General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh East, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan congratulated the former, but at the same time took a dig at the Congress president.
“She (Priyanka Gandhi) is a good woman, and Rahul Ji has accepted he can’t do politics all alone, and for that he is taking Priyanka’s help. It is a good thing,” said Mahajan.
The BJP had on Wednesday termed Priyanka’s appointment as an admission by the Congress that its president Rahul Gandhi has “failed” in providing leadership and said he has opted for family “crutches” after facing rejection from other opposition parties.
BJP leaders chose not to target Priyanka even though they latched on to her appointment to target her brother and her party’s “dynastic leadership”, claiming that the party is family in their organisation while the family is party in the Congress.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also launched a veiled attack on the Congress, saying that democracy runs in the BJP’s veins while in many other cases, family comprises the party.
Priyanka’s appointment not only reflects party’s intent to go full throttle in the politically-crucial state, which had 80 Lok Sabha seats, but also its revival efforts in Uttar Pradesh where the Congress’ influence has been waning over the years and where the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have announced a tie-up.
However, if the Congress hopes to regain lost ground in Uttar Pradesh by bringing Priyanka Gandhi into active politics, political adversaries claim she will have no impact on the crucial state ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, according to a PTI report.
Priyanka Gandhi, 47, will take over her new assignment from the first week of February, a statement from the party said. She will assist her brother, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, in the Hindi heartland state.
Party workers speculated that Priyanka Gandhi, who continues the Gandhi family’s legacy of active politics, may contest the polls from her mother Sonia Gandhi’s constituency Rae Bareli.
In the months ahead of the elections, she has been tasked to match the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, two star campaigners for the BJP who also have strong presence in the region.
