Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh), Jan 17 (IANS) Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Tuesday clearly indicated she was ready to play a bigger role in the Congress party, provided her brother Rahul Gandhi gives the nod.
In a brief interaction with the media persons before set went into closed-door parleys with local party functionaries in Rae Bareli, the charismatic 40-year-old declared, ‘I am ready to extend any help to my brother’.
Her brother, a Congress general secretary, is also making untiring efforts to re-establish the Congress party in this state where elections to the state assembly are to be held next month.
Asked if she would continue to confine herself only to campaigning in the assembly segments of parliamentary constituencies of her mother and brother, Priyanka shot back, ‘Well, for now I am here in Amethi and Rae Bareli only. But if my brother wants, then I will promptly move elsewhere; perhaps we can take a final call on that after I have discussed the issue with Rahul.’
She observed, ‘My brother is pretty clear about what he wants and the role he would want me to play in the campaign. As far as I am concerned, I will do anything to help my brother and go to campaign wherever he wants me to go.’
Known for her prompt responsiveness, Priyanka stopped her vehicle when a group of women waved out at her outside a private industrial unit that was shut for two years, leaving the workers jobless. Though the women workers looked angry while narrating their tale of woe because of the closure of the unit, she tried to cheer them up by patting the cheek of the one who was most aggressive, while asking her to have patience.
And when she told them, ‘since the election model code of conduct is in force, there is little that we can do right now, but we will certainly look into it after the elections’, the frown on the faces of the agitated women turned into smiles.
She told media persons, who were trailing her since morning, ‘We have been trying to work out some solution for these people who are naturally keen that their factory be restarted, so that their source of livelihood is restored.’
