Donned in all white, the political uniform of the country, Congress general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with her elder brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, on top of a bus, attracted a huge crowd during their 14 km road show in Lucknow on Monday.
In a rare visual, Priyanka Gandhi was at the front of the deck of the bus while Rahul Gandhi was standing besides her. Later, the Gandhis and Jyotiraditya Scindia were standing on the front, while other state party leaders were also present during the roadshow.
With the slogan of Priyanka Gandhi ‘Jindabad’ (hail) and Rahul Gandhi ‘Jindabad’, the Congressmen were beating the drums on course their journey to welcome their leaders.
Though the Gandhi scions arrived around 45 minutes late, the enthusiasm of the Congress workers was palpable. The crowd showered flowers on the leaders and in response, Priyanka Gandhi waved at them and even threw back the flower garlands at them.
With a snail pace of the road show, the security personnel witnessed a hard time controlling the crowd , which was virtually coming in front of the bus.
Along with her, Rahul Gandhi and Scindia, who was appointed as the general secretary of the state’s western region, the bus was crowded with several UP Congress leaders like P. L. Punia, R. P. N. Singh, Rajiv Shukla and UP president Raj Babbar among others.
A senior Congress leader claimed that around one lakh Congress supporters from different parts of the state and even from adjoining Uttarakhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan had arrived in Lucknow on Monday morning to welcome her.
Earlier, Congress president Rahul Gandhi along with his sister Priyanka Gandhi and Scindia were given a rousing welcome at the Choudhury Charan Singh airport. The Congress workers and leaders went berserk on seeing her and the security personnel had a hard time controlling them, when the leaders arrived at around 12:45 pm, about 45 minutes late from the scheduled time.
Under tight security cover, she immediately left for the road show but she did not disappoint the workers and waved at them to give a positive response to those assembled at the airport since early morning. UP Congress general secretary and in-charge of Lucknow, Vinod Kumar Mishra, who led the welcome party at the airport told UNI that such a mass crowd was never seen in the past in any event.
Several senior UP Congress leaders, including Maroof Khan, Amarnath Agarwal, Sidtharthpriya Srivastava and others, welcomed the leaders at the airport. (UNI)
