Uttar Pradesh Elections 2022: Congress to give 40% tickets to women, says Priyanka Gandhi

New Delhi, Oct 19: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vardra on Tuesday announced that the party will give 40 per cent of its tickets to women in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections.

Addressing a press conference, Priyanka said "The Congress party has decided that it will give 40% of the total election tickets to women in the state."

"I have taken this decision for women's empowerment. There is no other political motive, agenda behind this decision," she added.

PL Punia, party's newly-appointed campaign committee chief had recently said that Gandhi is the most popular political figure in UP at present.

"Priyanka Gandhi ji hi humara ek chehra hongi jinke ird-gird poora election campaign chalega (the election campaign will be revolve around Priyanka Gandhi)," he had said.

He also noted that very rarely has Congress announced a chief ministerial face and said that not having declared one till now will not hamper the party's chances as it already has a personality like Priyanka Gandhi to lead the charge against the BJP.

It is a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP in the UP polls as both the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have "fallen behind" and were "not in the fight anymore", Punia was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the BJP won a landslide victory winning 312 Assembly seats. The party secured a 39.67% vote share in the elections for 403-member Assembly. Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, BSP won 19 while Congress could manage to win only seven seats.