UTTAR PRADESH: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, whose comment on "weak candidates to cut BJP votes" has drawn skepticism from Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, said today: "I would rather kill myself than help the BJP in any way." She was responding to a question on her campaign ending up helping the BJP by weakening the opposition gathbandhan of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Priyanka Gandhi, who joined politics two months ago and is the Congress's campaign in-charge for 41 of Uttar Pradesh's 80 seats said "I will never compromise with that destructive ideology, never, not in my life. Every Congress candidate in Uttar Pradesh will cut into the votes of the BJP and no one else. I am very clear about this,". Priyanka Gandhi spoke to NDTV while campaigning in Raebareli, the parliamentary constituency of her mother Sonia Gandhi.
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Responding to BSP chief Mayawati's vitriolic attacks on the Congress and allegations that it was helping the BJP, Priyanka Gandhi repeated: "I just told you. I will kill myself but I will not help them. What more can I say?" On Wednesday, Priyanka Gandhi had said that Congress candidates would cut into BJP votes wherever they were not strong enough to win. "It is clear that our candidates are putting up a tough fight. Where they are strong enough, they will win on their own. Where they carry less weight, we have fielded such candidates that they would eat into BJP votes," the Congress general secretary had said.
Samajwadi party Akhilesh Yadav, in response, told news agency ANI: "I don't believe that the Congress has fielded weak candidates anywhere. No party does it. People are not with them, so they are making excuses." Mayawati was even sharper. "The BJP and the Congress are the same. Don't waste your vote on the Congress. Is Rahul Gandhi immature? Why did he hug Prime Minister (Narendra Modi?)," the BSP chief said.