New Delhi: The Congress is upbeat over public response to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Uttar Pradesh and is looking at utilizing the strength of its alliance with the SP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The yatra was in Uttar Pradesh from February 16 to February 25 and crisscrossed through around 18 parliamentary constituencies including Varanasi, Prayagraj, Amethi, Rae Bareli, Agra, Aligarh etc. The high points were Priyanka Gandhi joining Rahul in Moradabad and staying through Amorha, Hathras, Agra and Aligarh and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav joining Rahul in Agra and addressing a joint rally there.
Accordingly, the Congress and the SP are looking at running a joint campaign across the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and focus heavily on the agenda of social justice and youth welfare shared by the two alliance partners. The alliance managers are also looking at boosting cooperation between the Congress and SP workers to maximize the electoral benefits.
“The yatra received a huge response from the people across different regions. It has charged up the Congress workers and revived the party organization in the state. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined Rahul Gandhi in the yatra across Moradabad, Amroha, Hathras, Agra and Aligarh in the western parts of the state and the presence of SP president Akhilesh Yadav in Agra boosted the INDIA alliance. We are looking at more such joint campaigns across the state over the coming days,” AICC in charge of UP Avinash Pande told ETV Bharat.
As per the seat-sharing formula, the Congress will put up candidates on 17 seats while the SP and its supporting smaller parties will contest 63 seats out of the total 80 in Uttar Pradesh. Though senior leaders of the two parties are excited over the Congress-SP alliance taking place after a gap of seven years, there had been a concern on both sides over ground-level cooperation among the respective party workers and transfer of votes to the alliance candidates.
“I don’t think transfer of votes would be a major issue as workers of the two parties have been raising almost the same kind of issues over the past years. However, we will have to take steps to ensure that there is greater cooperation among the workers of the alliance partners,” said Pande.
Speaking on the contours of a joint campaign, Congress strategists noted that while the nationwide focus of Rahul Gandhi yatra was on justice for backwards, youth, farmers, small businessman, women and weaker sections of society, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too has been focusing on the issues related to his target segment, the PDA (Pichchda(backwards), Dalit (SC) and Alpsankhyak(minorities) over the past months.
“The issue of social justice finds resonance among the state voters. Recently, we saw how Rahul Gandhi’s focus on the police exam paper leak issue found support from millions of affected- youth across UP. The state government was forced to cancel the paper mainly due to the widespread protests from the job aspirants and because the national polls are approaching,” said Pande.
“From whatever I could sense through the yatra and during my interactions with the locals, winds of change are blowing through UP,” he added.
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