Rahul’s Scindia gambit fails in west UP

AGRA: Rahul Gandhi took a gamble earlier this year by sending Jyotiraditya

Scindia

to west Uttar Pradesh (UP) to boost the party’s electoral prospects. But, the Congress president’s gamble has failed miserably.


Scindia’s much-hyped appointment as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge for west UP failed to enthuse Congress cadres from the word go and as a result, the party faced a complete rout in the constituencies under his leadership. His roadshows during campaigning were a flop and his performance as a leader is evident in the election results, as the party lost all the Lok Sabha seats from where he campaigned.

Scindia held four road shows one each in Meerut, Agra, Hathras and Mathura and four public meetings in

Fatehpur Sikri

’s Jarar, where he shared the stage with Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and one in Aligarh and two in Aonla constituency. The party lost in all the four constituencies.

Scindia, who is considered close to Rahul Gandhi, had played a dynamic role in the grand old party’s victory in the recently concluded Madhya Pradesh assembly elections. But, he failed to leave any imprint in west UP.

According to party workers, Scindia had not involved himself much in his new role in western Uttar Pradesh, where almost a dozen constituencies have a considerable Muslim, Jat and Dalit population. The constituencies include Meerut, Baghpat, Aligarh, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Agra and Mathura. He had joined campaigning very late and mostly oversaw it from Delhi and his home town of Gwalior.

Rahul Gandhi had handed over the difficult charge of 39 parliamentary constituencies in west UP to Scindia for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Scindia, who has been elected four times from Madhya Pradesh’s Guna constituency, also lost elections to BJP’s KP

Yadav

in Modi wave on Thursday.


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