Wednesday 24 / April / 2024
Varanasi: Taking the battle to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's turf, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday launched her party's campaign for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election with a massive roadshow in Varanasi.
Thousands of Congress supporters and workers took part in the roadshow from the Circuit House to Englishiya Line, a distance of about eight kilometres.
The march began with Gandhi garlanding the statue of BR Ambedkar at the Circuit House and the marchers criss-crossed lanes and bylanes of the temple town.
Sonia, who was initially travelling in a car and later moved to a vehicle with open sunroof, waved at the crowd which cheered and raised slogans against the Modi government.
She came out of her vehicle several times to accept the greetings of the cheering supporters. As the road show passed through several localities, rose petals were showered on Sonia and her cavalcade from adjoining buildings.
Dozens of mini trucks prominently displayed posters with '27 Saal, UP Behaal' (27 years of UP's distress) written on them. Placards carried by hundreds of workers also had the same slogan written on them.
Sonia had to leave the party's roadshow towards the fag end of the eight-km march route after she complained of uneasiness.
According to Congress sources, Sonia was returning to Delhi and cancelled her planned visit to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in the evening to offer prayers.
The sources said that Sonia was suffering from viral fever but had decided to go ahead with the roadshow as she was not inclined to cancel it at the last minute.
Besides the party's chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit, AICC General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, state party chief Raj Babbar and senior leaders Pramod Tiwari and Sanjay Singh accompanied Sonia.
Earlier, Sonia flew in here for a day-long programme in Modi's constituency and was led by hundreds of bikers, waving party flags from the airport to the heart of the city.
This is Sonia's first visit to Varanasi after Modi became prime minister.
Congress has launched a campaign "dard-e-Banaras" to highlight lack of development in Varanasi, which Modi is representing for over two years in the Lok Sabha.
Congress has been out of power for 27 years in Uttar Pradesh and is projecting that the state has gone from bad to worse in these years through a campaign, called '27 Saal, UP Behaal'.
Varanasi is a key place in eastern Uttar Pradesh having some 160 of the 403 Assembly constituencies in the state.
Congress had only won two seats -- Amethi and Rae Bareli -- in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, while BJP and its ally Apna Dal secured 73 seats out of total 80.
The UP Assembly elections outcome will also have ramifications for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Poll strategist Prashant Kishor has been roped in by Congress to assist the UPCC in the Assembly polls. Kishor had planned the campaign strategy of Modi in Lok Sabha polls and Nitish Kumar in the Bihar Assembly polls.
