Giving Up On Lok Sabha 2019? Priyanka Gandhi Asks Party Cadre To Start Preparing For UP Assembly Polls

In an awkward moment for Congress workers in Amethi, the party’s general secretary of Uttar Pradesh East, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, yesterday (Wednesday, 27 March) asked them whether they were preparing hard for the state’s assembly polls in 2022, instead of enquiring about preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, reports DNA.

Priyanka Gandhi made the gaffe while she was campaigning in her brother, Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s constituency.

"You (workers) need to work hard for elections. Are you preparing for elections? Not for this (general elections), for 2022 (UP Assembly elections)? Are you doing? You have to work,” she said to the party cadre.

Moreover, Priyanka Gandhi may have unknowingly also hurt her party cadre’s sentiments when she declined to sit in a weighing scale which was set up to weigh her against ‘ladoos’ (a type of Indian sweetmeat).

Instead, she called upon the son of former MLA Noor Mohammad to participate in the ceremony; Priyanka Gandhi for her part took over the role of weighing him.

The visit to Amethi was part of a two-day trip the Congress leader has taken to Amethi and Rae Bareli. As part of her official political designation, she has been tasked with reviving Congress’s fortunes in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Priyanka Gandhi will also travel to Ayodhya tomorrow (Friday, 29 March); her full-fledged role during this election campaign is in stark contrast to previous elections when she limited public campaigning to constituencies being contested by her family members.