I have not decided whether to campaign: Priyanka

Touring Congress strongholds of Amethi and Rae Bareli in the run-up to UP assembly polls, Priyanka Gandhi today said she has not decided yet whether to campaign for the party, but made it clear that she will do “anything to help” her brother Rahul. “I have not decided yet…So far I am here in Amethi and Rae Bareli and my brother and I will talk to each other and decide,” 40-year-old Priyanka told reporters in Rae Bareli. “I will do anything to help my brother…whatever is required of me. I will do whatever he requires me to do. He knows to what extent he can require me,” she said. [caption id=“attachment_184849” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] Replying to questions, Priyanka, who is younger to Rahul, said, “For now, I am going to oversee the elections in these constituencies which fall in our parliamentary constituencies and then, after that, we will see if Rahul wants me to campaign, I will campaign.” Talking to workers of a private factory which has been closed for the past two years, she said efforts were on to find a way out. “Its election time so I am not allowed to give them any promises, but we have been working on it for two years…We are thinking of other solutions…somebody else to come and open a new one,” she said, adding that the workers had been demanding help to restart the factory. About 100 odd women workers of the factory stopped the cavalcade of  Priyanka as she was proceeding towards Rae bareli from Sanjay Gandhi hospital guest house where she had a night halt raising slogans over closure of the factory, Congress sources said. The women apprised Priyanka about their problems and the assurances of Sonia Gandhi on restarting the factory which have not yet been fulfilled. The agitated women also set a time frame of a week for taking steps for restarting the factory, sources said. The factory employing about 700 women was started in 2005 but was closed later and in 2010 on the initiative of Sonia Gandhi a meeting between owner of the factory and workers was also held after which the workers was paid salaries of about seven months. The women workers who make carpets, table mats and towels in the factory for export purposes are locals hailing from these two parliamentary constituencies. Earlier, Priyanka visited the house of Congress leader Mata Prasad Vaishya in Gauriganj to offer condolences on the death in the family in an accident. PTI