The Congress appointed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh as part of a major reshuffle on Wednesday. The appointment not only gives a formal role to Ms. Vadra, it also makes her a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body.
In an unprecedented move, Congress president Rahul Gandhi split the organisational responsibilities for Uttar Pradesh — a State with 80 Lok Sabha seats — between his sister and senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia. Kerala MP K.C. Venugopal has been appointed to the key post of general secretary (organisation) in place of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was looking after U.P., will now handle Haryana.
Stronghold of BJP
Ms. Vadra’s appointment came as a surprise to many within the party and was announced soon after the Congress was kept out of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party alliance. Eastern Uttar Pradesh is known as a stronghold of the BJP, and both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have contested from the area.
So far, Ms. Vadra used to manage her mother, Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency, Raebareli, even though she is known to have been consulted on key political issues. Party sources said the decision was taken by the family, with only a select few leaders kept in the loop. While Mr. Gandhi has been looking at feedback from workers via the Shakti App run by the party, this particular decision was very much his own. “UP is central to building a new hope-filled & compassionate India. The new UP AICC team led by Priyanka & Jyotiraditya, will herald the dawn of a new kind of politics in the State. We will offer the youth in UP a dynamic new platform to transform the State,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted.
While in the past there had been speculation that she would enter electoral politics, especially during the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, there were also naysayers who felt that it would create parallel centres of power within the party. In 2019, however, after the party tasted success in the recently conducted Assembly polls in five states, of which the Congress won three, it was felt that more bold moves were required.
"Rahul Gandhi has been quite his own man when it comes to decisions and strategy, including persisting with the 'Chowkidar chor hai' line on Rafale, and the appointments he made to organisation. The simple take away from Priyanka Vadra's appointment is that it is very typical of the new Congress president, to play on the front foot," said a senior leader in the Congress.
Her appointment comes at a time when the party has only seven seats in the UP Assembly and holds only two Lok Sabha seats of family boroughs in Amethi and Rae Bareilly. The Congress’s recent best performance in the State was in 2009 when the Congress won 21 Lok Sabha seats. Rahul Gandhi was credited as the brain behind that performance.
“This is the most aggressive move that we could make and we are giving a clear message that we will not be a B-team of any one. The voter wants to vote out BJP and they need an alternative. The BSP-SP is a caste-based alliance and would not have been an option for the forward castes,” a senior Congress leader from UP said.
According to sources, her appointment was also based on the ground survey among the Congress workers. Through the organizational reshuffle, Mr Gandhi has asserted his position within the party and sent a clear a message to the old guard of bringing in younger leaders to the fore.
