Bhartiya Janta Party took a dig at Priyanka Gandhi’s three-day Ganga Yatra from Prayagraj to Varanasi said on Monday while seeking to downplay Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's three-day Uttar Pradesh visit during which she will cover 100 km by boat in the river Ganga.
Senior BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma gave a statement saying:
For the Gandhi family, every election is a picnic. They come, they see and resort to rhetorical speeches. After the elections are over, they head towards Switzerland or Italy.
He added that as soon as a new election is announced, a new member of the family emerges and assumes magical leadership. Referring to Priyanka Gandhi, Sharma said that she has campaigned for the Congress in earlier elections as well and despite campaigning, her party suffered defeats at the hustings."
Priyanka Gandhi started her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in the state on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam -- the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati.
During her visit, she is scheduled to cover a distance of 100 km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi, which is the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Her ride down the river is being seen in the political spectrum as an effort to navigate her party out of nearly 30 years of lost ground in the state.