Defection won't impact party's revival efforts: UP Congmen

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders maintained that Jyotiraditya Scindia's defection won't impact the party's revival efforts in the state. “It is his individual decision and will not have any impact on any state, least of all on Uttar Pradesh. The writing was on the wall. You should remember he had supported the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370,” a Congress MLA told ET on the condition of anonymity.

Scindia was made party general secretary incharge of west UP in the runup to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Political pundits had dubbed it “punishment posting” but the MLA rejected the tag reasoning that Scindia was equated with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was given a similar charge of east UP which includes party’s bastions of Raebareli and Amethi.

“Scindiaji’s presence during the LS campaign in west UP was as weak as his absence would be now. In fact, when he was the general secretary, he would hardly shake hands with workers. He didn’t even speak properly to them... Congress is an ocean which had seen defections of Jagdambika Pal and Rita Bahuguna Joshi and remained unaffected,” UPPCC organisation incharge Siddharth Srivastava said.


UP BJP spokesman Chandramohan, however, said: “Scindia was a former Union minister and was also close to Congress brass. Now that he has left, it may come as a setback to Priyanka’s efforts to revive Congress as people’s confidence in the party might be shaken.” With an eye on the next assembly elections, the UP Congress has hit the ground running with a 40-day ‘Kisaan Jan Jagran Yatra’. Also, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s visibility has generally been uplifting for the cadres.