Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday pitched herself as the face of the party in the coming U.P. polls, but stopped short of revealing her plans with regard to contesting the elections. She was launching a separate youth manifesto with the promise of providing 20 lakh jobs to the youth of the State.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who jointly launched the manifesto at the party headquarters, said the it presented a new vision, not just for U.P. but for the entire country, as the vision offered by the BJP since 2014 had turned India’s “demographic dividend into a demographic disaster”.
“Do you see any other face from the Congress party. You are seeing my face everywhere,” Ms. Vadra responded on being asked who would the party’s chief ministerial candidate.
She, however, evaded a direct answer on whether she would contest the polls, and maintained that a decision was yet to be taken on this.
Later, in an interview to NDTV, she clarified that she had not positioned herself as the ‘chief ministerial face’ of the party and made a tongue-in-cheek comment.
To a question on the Congress supporting a non-BJP government, Ms. Vadra told reporters at the manifesto event that the party would consider it if such a need arose, but would insist on implementing its agenda for the women and youth of the State.
Titled as ‘Bharti Vidhan (recruitment document), the Congress promised the creation of 20 lakh jobs, including eight lakh for women.
Ms. Vadra said there were 12 lakh existing vacancies in the government and the remaining eight lakh jobs could be created by focusing on skill-based entrepreneurship.
“People will have to made aware that politics based on caste and communalism won’t fill your stomachs,” she said, adding that the Congress wanted to focus on development-oriented politics instead of a negative campaign.
Rahul’s claim
Speaking at the event, Mr. Gandhi said the employment document didn’t make just tall claims but showed how jobs could be created and a new vision offered. He claimed that 880 youth in U.P. lost their jobs everyday and over 16 lakh youth rendered unemployed in the last five years of the BJP rule.
“We don’t spread hatred, we work to unite people and we want to build a new U.P. driven by the strength and confidence of youth... Every State is important but U.P. occupies a weight that no other State does. So we are proposing a new way of doing things, a new imagination for it,” he observed.
In a subsequent tweet, Mr. Gandhi said things that were done “from the heart, responsibly and honestly, bear good results”.
