Congress pitches Priyanka against Modi in MP poll campaign

Jhabua: After resisting to field her from Varanasi, Congress appears to have decided to pitch one of its lead campaigner general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to checkmate Prime Minister Narendra Modi's influence in saffron-stronghold of Madhya Pradesh's Malwa-Nimar region which goes to polls in the last phase on May 19.
The Congress has scheduled her public meetings in places where either Modi is addressing masses the same day or after a gap of twenty-four hours, giving impression that it may have found in Priyanka another leader other than her party president brother Rahul Gandhi to engage directly BJP's Prime Minister, gifted with oratory skills, in public discourse.

Modi's rallies start from Indore on Sunday to consolidate voters in the metropolitan business city after denying ticket to Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan. He will also be campaigning in Khandwa. Priyanka, however, will also make her maiden visit to Indore three days later to bolster chances of Congress candidate Pankaj Sanghvi, who is pitted against BJP's fresh face Shankar Lalwani.

On May 13, both the leaders will be in Jhabua-Ratlam, the reserved Schedule Tribe seat that traditionally has been with the Congress. The BJP won this constituency only in 2014 and that too only when Congress rebel Dilip Singh Bhuria crossed over to defeat Kantilal Bhuria -- a veteran Congressman. Again, Congress MP Kantilal arrested the seat back in a by-poll to become parliamentarian for sixth time and is facing challenge from BJP’s GS Damor.

But for this, seven other seats -- Indore, Khandwa, Mandsour, Dewas (SC) and Ujjain (SC), Dhar (ST) and Khargone (ST) -- have largely remain with the BJP in the past polls.

After landing in Indore on Monday at 12.30 pm, Priyanka, as per her campaign tour released by the Congress, will take a chopper to seek blessings of Mahakal -- Lord Shiva in Ujjain which fits into party's strategy, explains a local leader, of peddling soft-Hindutva.

Modi has so far refrained from directly hitting out Priyanka -- who officially entered politics just before the Lok Sabha polls and was made in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, though he has not spared her father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Modi recently dubbed Rajiv "Corrupt No 1" and challenged Gandhi scions to contest remaining phases of elections in their father's name. The trading of charges was retaliatory, the PM defended himself once in a rally in Haryana.

Among two Congress' first family siblings, Priyanka has been more vitriolic and has not held her punches against the PM. Apart from criticising NDA government, she has called Modi "coward and weak prime minister", compared him to epic Mahabharata's mythical villain Duryodhan and billed herself as "Dilli ki beti (daughter)" during this week’s roadshow in the national capital to paint BJP's star campaigner "outsider".

Comparatively, Rahul has been a shade slightly different during electioneering after his "chowkidar chor hai" jibe at Modi after Rafale controversy boomeranged forcing the latter to tender public apologies -- once to Supreme Court at least. Rahul had also stated that despite Modi insulting his father, he only had love for him.

The Congress president, however, is holding rallies in Ujjain, Dhar and Khargone on Saturday and will return to Khandwa two days later for reaching out to people post party came back to power in MP after a gap of 15 years.

The BJP and the Congress have lined up with their crowd pullers to give last minute push to the fortunes of their respective candidates on tough seats in this region of state which borders with Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.