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Journalism of Courage
“Elections need to be fought over real issues — development, why is there no water in your taps, why is there no electricity and no roads, why are people not able to find employment,” said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, All India Congress Committee General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, as she kickstarted her door-to-door campaign from Noida on Monday.
“You are talking about 80 per cent and 20 per cent, why are you not talking about how many people are unemployed in Uttar Pradesh? Why are you not talking about how the percentage of money spent on education in the budget has reduced, why are you not talking about how much you have spent on health facilities? We are saying that the election needs to be fought on these matters,” she said, adding that only political parties benefit from spreading casteism and communalism, not the public.
Earlier this month, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said that the Assembly election will be an 80 per cent versus 20 per cent fight.
“There are many students, young people whose careers have been destroyed… hoping that they will get jobs after giving exams. When they raise their voice, they are being beaten up. For them, we want to create a special recruitment commission that will understand these problems and solve them,” she said.
Elaborating on the ‘Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakthi Hoon’ slogan that is part of the Congress campaign, Vadra said, “Women need to understand how much power they have. Women are not taken seriously in politics now. Women must stand together, and say that we want to stand on our feet… you must make us safe and able, and give us the chance to fight.”
Vadra, who was campaigning for Pankhuri Pathak, the party’s candidate from Noida, said that people of Noida are unhappy.
“Nobody listens to them, nobody even sees the MLA, they only see his advertisements,” she said. She added that it was significant that the Congress is contesting all 403 seats in the state after nearly three decades.
The Congress leader visited the JJ colony in Sector 8 as part of her door-to-door campaign, where a large crowd had gathered in the narrow lanes strewn with party flags and pamphlets, and people watched from terraces and shops.
“She told us we will get water connections and free electricity,” said Rita Yadav, a 35-year-old resident of the colony, who met Vadra. “We don’t have water connections, and the water we get is hard,” she said. Her nephew, Ashu Kumar Singh, a 22-year-old college student, said that the water in the colony, mostly drawn from handpumps, was hardly fit to drink.
Uday Chandra Jha (60), a retired auto parts machinist who has lived in the colony for over 35 years, said, “Not much has changed over the years. The smaller jhuggis just became concrete buildings. There’s still no clean water or proper drains, and the colony is still considered unauthorised.”
