New Delhi: Congress star campaigner Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will join election publicity towards the last leg of Maharashtra and Jharkhand campaigning after finishing her Lok Sabha by-poll campaign in Kerala’s Wayanad on November 11.
Polling for all 288 Maharashtra Assembly seats will be held on November 20 and campaigning for the same will end on November 18. Polling for all 81 Jharkhand Assembly seats will be held in two phases on November 13 and 20 and campaigning for the same will end on November 11 and November 18 respectively.
The INDIA Bloc is pitted against BJP-led alliances in both states. The opposition group hopes to retain power in Jharkhand and defeat the saffron party in Maharashtra where former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and president Mallikarjun Kharge have launched the grand old party’s campaigns.
However, there has been a buzz among the public in the two poll-bound states about whether Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would join the campaigns or not. Though Priyanka Gandhi has an edge over her rival in Wayanad, she is focusing entirely on the by-poll and trying to cover as many areas as possible before campaigning ends on November 18.
“There is a huge demand for her from across the state. After the announcement of MVA election guarantees on November 6, the joint alliance campaign will roll out across Maharashtra,” AICC secretary in-charge of Maharashtra Qazi Nizamuddin told ETV Bharat.
“There is a huge demand for Priyanka Gandhi in the state, but she has to focus on her election first. I hope she will come here after the Wayanad bypoll ends on November 13. That will be great. As it is, the Congress campaign is on. Rahul Gandhi is coming here on November 8 and 9 and other senior leaders will also come. The state team is on the ground and the focus is on a joint alliance campaign highlighting the government’s achievements,” Jharkhand Congress working president Shahzada Anwar told ETV Bharat.
According to Anwar, Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his MLA wife Kalpana Soren were campaigning across the state to mobilise support for the INDIA Bloc.
“They have a huge support among the tribal voters. Kalpana Soren is addressing four to five rallies per day and is very popular among women voters, who benefited from the special allowance scheme for them,” he said. Kharge had launched the Congress guarantees in Jharkhand on November 5 and slammed the BJP for deploying a large number of its leaders in a relatively small state.
“That is true. There are just 81 seats in the state, but the saffron party has sent as many ministers here to take on the INDIA Bloc. They are not interested in protecting the interests of the tribals living here, but they want to control the large amounts of natural resources in the state. The saffron party keeps talking about OBCs, but it was our state government that had increased reservations for the OBCs in the state from 14 per cent to 27 per cent, but the same was not approved by the Governor. The BJP only made a lot of promises in the past but never kept them,” said Anwar.
Read more: People Of Wayanad Will Ask Me Not To Come There Often: Priyanka Gandhi
