Congress will contest all seats in UP polls: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra

In UP assembly elections, Congress will go solo. It will not align with any other party. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Sunday. Ms Vadra said the party would contest all 403 seats alone in the state, 40 per cent of which will be offered to women. Addressing the Congress party's 'Pratigya Sammelan-Lakshya 2022' in West UP's Bulandshahr, she also said that only Congress workers will contest from the party ticket. "We will nominate only Congress workers for all seats. If Congress has to win, it will win on its own," she said.

Dismissing speculations of back-channel negotiations with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajvadi Party (SP), she said her party has been fighting alone in the state. "Be it Covid-19 or any other crisis, it is the Congress workers that came to help people. Did SP or BSP fight for Unnao, Lakhimpur or Hathras? But we did!" she said. Emphasising that the electoral contest can only be won by strengthening the party at the booth level, she called upon Congress workers to bolster the booth committees. She asked party workers to be active on social media and post all party activities on various social networking platforms.

Ms Vadra accused, the saffron party has no respect for the freedom movement as its leaders did not shed blood and sweat for the country's independence, and added that only leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and BR Ambedkar envisioned freedom for the country.Congress had won just 7 out of the 403 assembly seats in the state in the last assembly elections. More recently, Rahul Gandhi lost his Amethi seat to BJP's Smriti Irani in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.