Congress party embarks on personality-based strategy in U.P.

The Congress’s strategy in Uttar Pradesh, where it won just 28 seats in the 403-member state assembly in 2012, will be centred on projecting strong faces, it is emerging, in keeping with new strategist Prashant Kishore’s style of personality-based electioneering.

Mr Kishore has repeatedly told the party that in U.P., the only way to improve the party’s strike rate is to centre its campaign around a figure, just as it is doing in Punjab, where Pradesh Congress Committee chief Captain Amarinder Singh is the face of the Congress campaign, with slogans such as “Punjab da Captain” and “Captain da Punjab”.

Dikshit as CM?

Keeping this in mind, party sources said Congress veteran Sheila Dikshit could be projected as the chief Chief Ministerial face for next year’s U.P. polls, even as Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is being “persuaded” to step outside the family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli and campaign across the State.

The Congress’s strategists for the State, led by general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, feel that in the absence of a strong party organisation, the presence of the two feisty women will galvanise the workers. Both favour an aggressive style, both can claim family connections linked to the state: if Ms Dikshit is the daughter-in-law of Congress freedom fighter who had served as a Union minister and governor, Umashanker Dikshit — whom Rajiv Gandhi was known to consult – Ms Vadra, of course, belongs to the Nehru- Gandhi family.

‘Ready for any role’

On Tuesday at an interaction with journalists at the Indian Women’s Press Corps, Ms Dikshit asserted that as the State's "daughter-in-law", she was ready to play any role in the politically crucial state.

To a question on whether her proximity to the Nehru-Gandhi family and her Brahmin credentials were an advantage, she said, “I am U.P.'s daughter-in-law, I married there, I was born there. I think that's enough as a credential.”

“Let the announcement come and then only I will be in a position to comment. But I am ready to do whatever the party wants me to as a foot soldier,” she continued.

Asked if Ms Priyanka Gandhi would participate more actively in the Congress' election campaign, Ms Dikshit said she would be a “great asset” and will be “welcomed”: “I can't tell you what will happen. It would be too presumptuous on my part to assume things. If she joins she will very welcome because she is familiar with Uttar Pradesh. She will be a great asset.”

Officially, too, the Congress remained coy on Ms Vadra’s possible impending role in U.P., with the party’s communication chief Randeep Surjewala refusing to either confirm or deny whether she would be campaigning across the State.