Rahul puts 41 seats in UP under Priyanka, 39 under Scindia

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has placed 41 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh under the charge of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and 39 parliamentary segments under Jyotiraditya Scindia, a party statement said on Tuesday.

Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia were appointed All India Congress Committee general secretary in-charge UP east and UP west respectively in January and took charge last week.

Among the constituencies placed under Priyanka Gandhi's charge were the key seats of Lucknow, Amethi, Raebareli, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Phulpur, Allahabad, Barabanki, and Kushinagar.

Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Pilibhit, Dhaurahra, Kanpur, and Farrukhabad, were some of the key constituencies placed under Scindia's charge.

A day after making her debut in Uttar Pradesh's political arena as Congress's general secretary, Priyanka Gandhi Tuesday got down to business, holding a marathon strategy session at the party office in Lucknow to script her party's victory in the upcoming parliamentary polls.

Returning to the state capital after a short visit to Jaipur, where her husband Robert Vadra and his mother Maureen appeared before the ED in connection with a probe into an alleged land scam in Rajasthan's border town of Bikaner, Gandhi got cracking at the UP Congress headquarters.

Immediately after reaching the party office, she was closeted with senior leaders and office bearers of Lucknow, Unnao, Mohanlalganj, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Prayagraj, Ambedkar Nagar, Sitapur, Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Bahraich, and Phulpur Lok Sabha constituencies to galvanise the party's preparations for the Lok Sabha elections.

Party sources said she held meetings till late in the evening with 10-20 people each from these constituencies to gauge the situation on the ground.

In an adjoining room, the newly appointed Congress general secretary incharge of western UP, Jyotiraditya Scindia, held deliberations with leaders from the constituencies he has been asked to groom.

Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia, along with Rahul Gandhi, had held a grand roadshow here on Monday, raising hopes of a turnaround in the party's fortunes.

Virtually launching the party's Lok Sabha poll campaign, Rahul Gandhi had asserted that it was the time to uproot the Bharatiya Janata Party and form government in the state.