Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has said that the party will give 40 per cent tickets to women candidates in the forthcoming UP elections but has not committed to fighting the election herself.
Vadra announced this in a media interaction in Lucknow on Tuesday with the slogan ‘Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon’ (I am a girl I can fight).
Vadra said that her decision had been influenced by the women and girls she had met throughout the state. “This is a decision for that Paro who held my hand in the Sangam and said she wanted to enter politics…for the daughter of Hathras…for Puja and Madhu who took my hand in the PAC compound at Sitapur," she said.
According to the report of the Election Commission of India on the state’s election of 2017, of the 4,852 candidates who contested, 482 were women. Of these, 42 women were elected. Among the winning candidates two—Aradhana Mishra Mona and Aditi Singh—were from the Congress. The Congress had fielded 11 women candidates.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha, only 14 per cent MPs are women. On her own candidature, Vadra said that she had not taken a decision. “I will take a decision when the time comes,” she said.
The party’s decision, she said, was only aimed at empowerment and had no hidden agenda.
ALSO READ
- Lok Sabha polls: Intense fight as all key players have tasted success in these 8 seats in UP
- Gorakhpur MP Ravi Kishan's wife files complaint against woman who claims to be his spouse
- Insects found in flour used to cook mid-day meal UP school
- Lok Sabha polls: Priyanka Gandhi unlikely to contest from Rae Bareli
Vadra said that she was trying to do ‘different’ kind of politics—one which gave voice to whoever was oppressed in the state, among them women and Dalits. “My politics is to bring the hope that some change can happen in UP. That it can progress,” she said.
Fielding a question on why the Congress was not visible on the ground, Vadra said that 18,700 Congress workers had been jailed for periods ranging for three days to three months under the present government.
“It is the Congress which has been constantly fighting against this government,” she said adding that her opponents should think of more creative ways to criticise her. “For everything, they say I am politicising it. They need to be more creative,” she said.
