Priyanka: Last hope

New Delhi, March 29: Resigned to a four-cornered contest in Uttar Pradesh after repeated rebuffs from the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, the Congress seems set to field Priyanka for a high-profile state-wide campaign.

Sources said party strategists are drawing up a detailed plan for extensive campaigning by Sonia Gandhi’s daughter. The plan is expected to be placed before Sonia for her approval.

The Congress chief has not yet revealed her plans for Priyanka. But in a hint of what the leadership is thinking, senior member Salman Khursheed has said in the latest issue of the party’s in-house magazine, Congress Sandesh, that Priyanka, too, would have a role in the elections. Her brother Rahul is contesting from Amethi.

“Priyanka and Rahul are a part of history already written and read with passion. They may have dreams of their own,” Khursheed wrote.

Priyanka, the sources said, might start campaigning after the first week of April when the deadline for filing nominations for the first round of polls is over. Thirty-two Lok Sabha constituencies covering the whole of eastern Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in the first round on April 26.

That the Congress is reconciled to waging a lonely battle in the state became evident today as it changed its tune on wooing the Samajwadi. After four days of “appeals” to join hands for consolidation of secular forces against the BJP, the Congress today blasted the Samajwadi for its alleged underhand deal with the BJP and the RSS.

In a signed statement issued during the day, working committee member Arjun Singh singled out Samajwadi general secretary Amar Singh for “helping” Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the BJP-RSS combine.

Arjun Singh said Amar Singh’s contention that he, while on a visit to Lucknow some time ago, had threatened to withdraw Congress support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav government was a “total lie” aimed at covering up his party’s compulsions to help the BJP. “It appears that Amar Singh believes that repeating a lie many times over makes it a truth,” Arjun Singh said. He added that he possessed a taped recording of the news conference on March 12 and had submitted the transcript to Sonia.