Sonia Gandhi arrives in Varanasi to launch Congress' UP campaign

Sonia Gandhi, who will start the Congress’ campaign in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, has arrived at Varanasi to start the proceedings.

At a press conference on Monday, UP Congress’ chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit said that Sonia Gandhi will lead a roadshow in Varanasi on Tuesday, to start the party’s campaign for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh elections. UP Congress chief Raj Babbar and senior leaders such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khurshid, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Pramod Tiwari, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Zafar Ali, Sanjay Singh, Rana Goswami, Rajesh Mishra, Ajay Rai, Rajeshpati Tripathi are expected to take part in it. [caption id=“attachment_2929278” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Twitter/@INCIndia[/caption] The roadshow will begin from Kachahari at 12 pm, after party leaders garland the statue of BR Ambedkar and will cover a distance of around eight km in three hours. It will conclude at Englishiyaline in Varanasi, where Sonia is expected to deliver a short speech and garland the statue of former Union Minister and late Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kamlapati Tripathi. The roadshow is supposed to be a part of Congress’ campaign ‘2_7 saal, UP behal’_ which was launched by Azad and Babbar. Sonia is also expected to raise a number of issues and take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his own constituency over the “lack of development”. The roadshow is also aimed at rejuvenating her party workers ahead of the crucial Assembly polls. It also aims at reviving the Dalit and Brahmin votebank of the party. Sonia will also offer prayers at the Hindu temple of Kashi Vishwanath, reported The Economic Times . Although she has been to the city thrice, this will also be her first visit to the temple. Poll strategist Prashant Kishor terms the roadshow as ‘Dard e Banaras’, which would highlight the crucial issues which disturb the residents of the state. River Ganga, weavers, boatmen and lack of infrastructure will be the core issues which Gandhi will use to attack Modi. On the first day of the Parliament, Opposition parties attacked the Centre over its initiatives to clean river Ganga. The Ganga will hence be an impassioned weapon in Sonia Gandhi’s armour against Modi, said a senior party leader. Sonia is expected to whip up passions about how the river continues to be a “big mess” many many years after her late husband Rajiv Gandhi rolled out the ‘Ganga Safai Abhiyan’ from the Dr Rajendra Prasad Ghat on 14 June, 1986. Sonia’s focus would be Modi and his “failures with regard to his parliamentary constituency”. Starting the campaign with Varanasi is an attempt to challenge the central government head-on, as an article in The Huffington Post points out. The Congress might be trying to show that it hasn’t lost the will to fight. The weavers of Varanasi reminisce about the Congress’ rule in the country, as Hindustan Times reported. The grand old party knew how to run the country, one of the weavers said. “Weavers are suffering a lot for the last two years since the market is sluggish because of poor policies of Modi government,” Hindustan Times quoted a weaver as saying. Rising inflation and less work opportunities are adding to their plight. This might give an impetus to Congress’ campaign raise its hopes of winning the elections.

The UP Congress tweeted the schedule of Gandhi in Varanasi and invited more and more number of people to join the roadshow.

With inputs from agencies.