Focus on youth, women fail to revive Congress in UP

Notwithstanding Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crisscrossing Uttar Pradesh and a buzz built around the "Ladki hoon, Lad sakti hoon" campaign, the Congress was leading in only one seat out of 403 in the state, with many of its senior leaders trailing in their respective constituencies, according to trends available at 1.20 pm.

State Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu was trailing and was at the third position in Tamkuhi Raj constituency in Kushinagar district.

Louise Khurshid, the wife of senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, was trailing in Farrukhabad assembly seat.

Aradhana Mishra was the only party candidate leading. She is contesting from Rampur Khas assembly seat in Pratapgarh district.

The party is also trailing in Rae Bareli and Amethi, once known to be its strongholds.

The party candidates are trailing in all the six constituencies in Rae Bareli and four in neighbouring Amethi.

The party's candidate in Rae Bareli Manish Chauhan and Ashish Shukla in Amethi were way behind rivals in the vote count.

The party has only managed to get 2.44 per cent votes in the ongoing counting.

With a push to woo women and young voters, the Congress party contested on its own in the Uttar Pradesh elections held in seven phases between February 10 and March 7.

The task was cut out for Priyanka Gandhi to improve the party's tally from seven in the 2017 assembly elections when its vote share was 5.4 per cent.

Counting of votes for the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday morning with a three-layer security in place and cameras installed at all counting centres.