Elections 2012: Priyanka to remain in pocket boroughs, Amethi and Rae Bareli

NEW DELHI: In the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, where Rahul Gandhi's charisma will be put to test, his sister Priyanka Gandhi said she will limit her campaigning for Congress to the family pocket boroughs of Amethi and Rae Bareli.

While interacting with reporters in Amethi, Priyanka said she would be concentrating on the assembly seats that fall within the Lok Sabha constituencies of her mother and brother. "I have been asked to look after 10 constituencies, five in Amethi and five in Rae Bareli and I am going to do that...I have not been told what I should do but I would probably stay here," Priyanka was quoted as saying.

Her recent statement that she could campaign for Congress outside Amethi and Rae Bareli, if asked by Rahul Gandhi was seen as the first step of her transformation into a full-time politician. In her interaction with the media on Friday, however, she appeared to discount the possibility of her formal entry into politics.

Incidentally, the Supreme Court verdict scrapping telecom licences did not affect the Congress anti-corruption campaign in UP. Asked whom she think as the bigger enemy of her party-Mayawati or Mulayam Singh Yadav-Priyanka said corruption, anarchy and politics of opportunism were the biggest enemies of the people of Uttar Pradesh. Exuding confidence that the "hard work of Rahul Gandhi would pay off" in these elections, she said that the frustration of chief minister Mayawati was beginning to show.

In Amethi, Priyanka Gandhi asked the people "to vote for change" in the state. "People are not getting their due... Politics has turned opportunistic," she said at a meeting in Balbhadrapur.

Noting that the state's politics has been based on religion and caste for the past 20 years, she called upon people to vote for a change of regime in the state, adds IANS.

"If a Congress government is formed in UP, it would develop the state. You should do it for the future of your children and not for the Congress," Priyanka said. Echoing her brother, she said that people from Uttar Pradesh have been going to developed states like Maharashtra and Kerala.