Congress MLAs cite absence of Priyanka Gandhi, Samajwadi Party burden for loss

NEW DELHI: Five of the seven Congress candidates who managed to survive the BJP wave in Uttar Pradesh have given reasons from less exposure of Priyanka Gandhi, anti-incumbency against the Samajwadi Party government, absence of motivation among grassroots workers and Akhilesh Yadav's 'Gujarat ke Gadhe' comment for the Congress' worst performance in the just-concluded UP assembly polls.

"When Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going all out and camping three days in Varanasi, we also have to bring out our big guns like Priyanka. It is all about emotional appeal to the voters," Congress winner of Behat seat in Saharanpur, Naresh Saini, told ET.

Aditi Singh, who secured the biggest margin among Congress candidates, winning the Rae Bareli seat was the only beneficiary of a Priyanka Gandhi campaign.

"It would have been great if Priyanka had campaigned more. It is not about blaming the leadership. We need to seriously consider why people are not voting for Congress and why our ground-level worker is so demotivated.

We need to go back to the drawing board," Singh said. When asked if the alliance helped the party, Singh said it did.

"Maybe there was some anti-incumbency (for SP). We contested 105 seats out of 403 -just about 1/4th of them. That is why only 7 wins look stark," Singh said.

Saini, however, said the alliance was not a reality among local leaders even as Rahul and Akhilesh hit off well. "The SP workers did not cooperate with us...they hurt us in Saharanpur seats," Saini said.

Congress leader Pramod Tiwari's daughter, Aradhana Mishra Mona, who won the Rampur Khas seat, however, said all Congress MLAs had consented to the alliance with SP after Rahul Gandhi called them for a meeting in Delhi.

"SP and INC vote share is 28% and our joint rallies saw huge attendance, but we could not covert this to seats," Mona told ET. She said all Congress candidates wanted Priyanka to campaign for them. "But given this rampage by BJP, perhaps it was the right call for Priyanka.

We might see more of her in UP in 2019 when we have bigger stakes," she said. Rakesh Singh, Congress MLA from Harchandpur, said CM Akhilesh Yadav's comment on 'Gujarat ke Gadhe' hurt the prospects as PM succeeded to paint himself as the target of the comment.

"We failed to clarify this. The SP family feud also hurt our prospects. There was a Hindu consolidation of votes against the alliance as people, though SP was only favoured towards Muslims.

Congress lost its base vote too due to the alliance with SP," Singh told ET. Masood Akhtar, MLA from Saharanpur city, however, said it was "necessary" that the alliance continues till 2019.