Hope Priyanka Gandhi campaigns outside Amethi, Rae Bareli: Ghulam Nabi Azad

New Delhi: Ghulam Nabi Azad, the new Congress General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, on Wednesday favoured Priyanka Gandhi campaigning outside Amethi and Rae Bareli for the state Assembly elections next year. [caption id=“attachment_2116273” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ghulam Nabi Azad. AFP[/caption] “I do hope that she will definitely campaign in some other places as per time available to her,” he told reporters. He was asked whether Priyanka, who has been focusing on the Assembly segments in Amethi and Rae Bareli Parliamentary constituencies so far, would be campaigning outside to help party Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Azad will be going to Lucknow on Thursday for a two-day brainstorming session with senior state leaders on the strategy ahead. He has already said the Congress will project a chief ministerial candidate. Talking separately at the AICC briefing, senior party spokesman Ajay Maken said it was up to Priyanka to decide when she wanted to get into active politics. He was asked to react on Azad’s remarks earlier in an interview that there is an overwhelming desire among party workers to see that Priyanka Gandhi pitching along Rahul Gandhi in the Uttar Pradesh electoral battle.    In Uttar Pradesh, Congress had secured just two seats in the last Lok Sabha elections with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi emerging victorious from their traditional seats of Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively. The Congress is in political wilderness in Uttar Pradesh since 1989 following emergence of divisive ‘Mandal-Mandir’ politics and rise of the BSP, which took away its crucial Dalit vote base.