NEW DELHI -- Congress Party is on the verge of announcing that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will spearhead its election campaign for the 2017 polls in Uttar Pradesh, and that announcement could come as soon as today or tomorrow, party sources have told HuffPost India.
In her role as the star campaigner for the critical U.P. election, Gandhi, the younger sister of Rahul Gandhi, vice president of the Congress Party, is expected to unleash all her flair and charisma to reverse the fortunes of the Grand Old Party in India's most politically significant state.
Vadra, who is married to controversial businessman Robert Vadra, has steadfastly kept away from the thick of politics, but the fact that the Congress Party is losing one state election after another under the leadership of her brother has bolstered long-standing demands for her to jump into the fray.
The ABP-Nielsen Poll in March had the Congress Party along with the Rashtriya Lok Dal winning just 13 out of the 403 seats in the U.P. State Assembly, which is less than half the number of seats it got in 2012. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress Party managed to win only two seats, which were from the Gandhi family's loyal constituencies.
Previously, Gandhi has only campaigned for her brother in Amethi and her mother in Rae Bareli. Strategist Prashant Kishor is widely credited with bringing Gandhi front and centre of the Congress Party campaign in U.P.