The Congress placed its best foot forward on Wednesday by appointing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia in charge of the politically-critical Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to the general elections this summer. Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia will be the general secretaries in charge of Uttar Pradesh East and West, respectively.

Priyanka will officially take charge in February. Her appointment is aimed at enthusing the cadre in UP where the Congress is presently without an ally against the BJP and the regional outfits, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which have counted the Grand Old Party out of their recently-declared alliance.

Trump card for the party

Considered a trump card for the Congress, which has shown trends of revival after the Gujarat Assembly elections, Priyanka Gandhi, it is also rumoured, will contest from one of the family turfs – Amethi or Rae Bareilly — or from Varanasi against Narendra Modi.

Welcoming Priyanka, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the fight against the BJP is ideological and the party will play on the front foot. “We won’t play on the back-foot, we will play on the front-foot, be it Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh,” he said in Amethi.

Asked if his sister will contest elections, he said the decision is up to Priyanka. Though the move is aimed at strengthening the Congress, he did not rule out an alliance with the SP and the BSP.

“I have not sent them (Priyanka and Scindia) here for two months but given a mission to take ahead the true ideology of the Congress... to take the poor and deprived sections of society along,” Rahul added.

Senior Congress MP KC Venugopal replaced Ashok Gehlot as the general secretary in-charge of organisation. Opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was in-charge of UP, was given charge of Haryana.

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