Lucknow: Bhartiya Janata Party returned to power breaking the 37-year-long record in Uttar Pradesh and forming a back-to-back government. Although the seats and vote percentage of the Samajwadi Party (SP) have increased but the condition of other parties has deteriorated including Congress.
In the 2022 elections, Congress has been reduced from 7 to 2 seats. Its vote share has boiled down to 2.33 percent from 6.25 percent in 2017 and 11.65 percent in 2012.
Senior Congress leader Zeeshan Haider, who left the Congress soon after the election, believes that Priyanka Gandhi had relied more on her servants than the leaders. The neglect of the leaders drowned Congress.
Political analyst Govind Pant Raju, who has been watching politics closely for the last 4 decades, believes that after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Priyanka Gandhi was given the responsibility of UP. He further adds that Gandhi raised many issues of the state with great enthusiasm, but visited like a tourist and did not take any major step to strengthen the organization.
Another political analyst Raghavendra Tripathi said that Priyanka Gandhi wanted to run UP politics from Delhi and she needs a rooted leader who works on the street on the issues of roads and drains.
He also said that the biggest reason for the condition of the Congress was that Priyanka relied more on the worn-out leaders. These were leaders who did not do any work for the Congress for the last 30 years and it has been expected from them to win elections, who could not consolidate a booth for 30 years.
Summing it up, senior journalist Jai Prakash Pal said that not only Priyanka Gandhi, the entire Congress had forgotten its strongholds in Rae Bareli and Amethi but the vote share of the seats of these two districts is still with them.
Pal questioned that how can you win the trust of the entire state when you forget your land and hesitate to go among them.
