At a recent election rally in Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked the crowd to say the slogan I’m a woman, I can fight. This slogan is Indian National Congress party’s bid to achieve ground in the heartland of India, which is also the most populous state of the country. By winning over women voters who have for long been marginalized, the Congress is trying make a comeback.
Congress has failed miserably in the past two general elections and is now fighting for survival by presenting itself as an alternative to the present ruling party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party which churned out great leaders – Jawahar Lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Dr Manmohan Singh – holds secularism at heart irrespective of caste and religion.
As of late, the Indian National Congress seems to have set its eyes on women voters, who make up about 46% of Uttar Pradesh’s electorate. According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau report, in 2019, the state of Uttar Pradesh accounted for almost 15% of all registered crimes committed against women in India. The government has also acknowledged that UP has the highest number of gender crimes in the country. As such, the oldest political party of India is wooing the female vote.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress general secretary, at a press conference in Lucknow highlighted that the politics of caste and religion can be changed to politics of development only by bringing women into politics. She announced that 40% of the candidates fielded by the party for the 2022 UP Assembly elections would be women. The general secretary said the decision to provide 40% of the party ticket to women was to provide them better representation in state politics. “If women wanted to pull the country out of politics of casteism and religion, and take it towards politics of development and representation, they would have to step forward.”
The Congress leader clarified that ticket would be distributed to the women on merit. “This would be determined by the work of the candidate and how much the people in her Assembly constituency recognized her.” Moreover, the party also promised electric scooters and smartphones to female students, free rides on government buses to all women, three free cooking-gas cylinders per family a year, and gender-based job reservations.
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At the Gorakhpur rally, which had about 40,000 people present, there was a high proportion of women attendees. “I want to tell the women that I will fight for them, the Congress party will fight for them,” Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had said.
