As the assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh and four other states are inching close, AICC national secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has once again started masquerading herself as a devout Hindu by visiting temples.
But among poll-bound states, Uttar Pradesh seems to be her key focus, where after the Lakhimpur Kheri incident she has made desperate attempts to establish herself as the key challenger to the BJP. Amid such political plotting, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has started “temple run” once again and the PR team of the Congress is ensuring their proper media coverage.
A few days back the media was informed by the Congress that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is observing fast during Navratri. And on Sunday the Congress informed that she visited the Durgakunda temple in Varanasi ahead of the farmers’ rally. Before that, she also visited the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi on Sunday.
कांग्रेस महासचिव श्रीमती @priyankagandhi जी ने दुर्गा कुंड में माता दुर्गा के दर्शन कर उनका आशीर्वाद लिया।
— Congress (@INCIndia) October 10, 2021
माँ दुर्गा से पाप और अन्याय का संहार कर देश में शांति स्थापित करने की मंगलकामना की।#KisanKoNyayDo pic.twitter.com/tLrsbTFD8Z
The Congress party and its supporters tried her temple visit to have some takeaway points for the media and voters, like she is deeply religious and spiritual.
On Thursday, she had swept the floor of a Valmiki temple in Lucknow. So far in the past one and half months, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has visited a dozen temples to woo Hindu voters.
In recent times it has been observed that both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra try to play a soft Hinduism card and build up their image as pious Hindu to catch Hindu votes ahead of elections.
In 2017 when Rahul Gandhi was Vice president of the Congress he had declared himself as a “Janeu Dhari Hindu”, after his ‘temple darshan’ exercise in Gujarat was caught in controversy following reports of Rahul Gandhi declaring himself non-Hindu at Somnath temple erupted.
If the brother-sister duo is taking so much effort, it may be because of the reasons that social media users and common people obliquely hint at their possible catholic origin.
Their temple visit is a move to make Hindu voters believe that the Congress party is not anti-Hindu. The actual game is planned and executed somewhere else. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her party may know the addresses of few temples but the party has details of as many as 8432 mosques in Uttar Pradesh that will serve the purpose of the Congress.
The minority cell of UP Congress had decided to distribute its Sankalp Patra among Muslims in front of 8432 mosques in UP on Fridays. Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee’s (UPCC) minority department has started the process of distributing a 16-point manifesto in front of mosques containing promises to be made to the minorities in the upcoming 2022 UP assembly election.
The Congress has promised to open tanneries shut down during the Samajwadi Party rule, a judicial investigation into the riots that happened when Akhilesh Yadav was the Chief Minister and also the setting up of Mathur Commission if anyone is found guilty. This initiative of distributing manifestos outside mosques by the minority department of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is consistent with ‘Muslims first’ policy of the party.
Hence, till assembly elections are over, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi are expected to continue the temple run game.
