Congress fighting 2019 Lok Sabha polls to save the nation, says Priyanka Gandhi in Amethi

India वोट Kar | March 28, 2019

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday that the 2019 Lok Sabha election was being fought to save the country and that a victory for party president Rahul Gandhi would be a victory for India. She was speaking during a two-day visit to Amethi and Rae Bareli to energise grassroots workers.

Message to workers

Asked whether she was telling workers that Rahul Gandhi would be the next Prime Minister, she said she was asking them to go to the people and fight hard. Responding to a question on the Prime Minister’s address to the nation that day, she accused the NDA government of politicising every issue. On whether she would contest or campaign nationally, she said she would do whatever the party asked.

At closed-door meetings with booth-level workers in Musafirkhana, she spoke of a ‘Mission UP’, saying Rahul Gandhi had tasked her with forming a Congress government in the state in the 2022 Assembly election. Workers quoted her as promising to revive projects started under her father, Rajiv Gandhi, and accusing the BJP of moving projects such as a food park, a paper mill and an IIIT out of the area. She said she had been working with them since 1999 and that strengthening the party at the booth level was her area of expertise. Local NSUI members said they would remind voters about hardships from demonetisation and GST.

Poster row

Posters near the Musafirkhana bus stand questioned her absence from Amethi and carried the picture of a Samajwadi Party student wing leader, Jaisingh Pratap Singh. He complained to the district magistrate, calling the posters a conspiracy to defame him and Ms Gandhi Vadra. The SP-BSP alliance has decided not to contest Amethi and Rae Bareli.

What happened next

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the BJP won 303 seats and the Congress 52. In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, the BJP won 255 seats and Yogi Adityanath remained Chief Minister.

Originally published on 28 March 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.