Lucknow control room guides Priyanka Gandhi in UP

NEW DELHI: As Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra embarked on her maiden three-day mass contact programme, helping her was Congress’ Lucknow-based control room.

A tight team of Congress coordinators, hand-picked by All India Congress Committee (AICC) data analytics department and vetted by Priyanka’s office, is closely watching and giving inputs. Be it the performance of the party workers she will meet or women students from Allahabad University during her “Boat pe charcha”, general secretary incharge of UP East is being guided over minute details. These range from the local issues affecting university students and electoral politics or performance of Congress. According to sources, the control room is also equipped with fine data points including the number of booth workers and the party’s performance in successive elections.

After Priyanka’s maiden programme, which wraps up a day before Holi, the party is planning to launch a mass contact programme in her domain – Eastern UP. The party has done the spadework of connecting Congress’ grassroot workers who would now fan out to each booth and get voter data. Armed with smart phones, the workers would be asked to verify voter lists and then take the campaign material door-to-door.


At present, the party has basic information that it gets through voter lists. A Congress official said, “What is required is mass contact programme. A door-to-door campaign would be initiated.”