Priyanka debuts on Twitter with massive response

Hours before embarking on her Uttar Pradesh visit, AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her debut on Twitter, notching up thousands of followers within no time.

Priyanka's personal Twitter handle @priyankagandhi was announced around noon on Monday and had gathered more than 32,000 followers within the first hour itself.

A number of Congress leaders welcomed Priyanka on Twitter and urged their supporters to follow her.

Though Priyanka had not tweeted yet, she had followed seven persons, including her brother and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, senior leaders Ahmed Patel and Ashok Gehlot.

Congress has stepped up its presence on social networking platforms, a medium it had ignored before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had used the medium to the hilt in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, but of late Rahul has often trumped his arch-rival on Twitter with his tweets getting better traction among netizens.

On Sunday, Priyanka had issued an audio message to Congress workers in Uttar Pradesh urging them to embark on a “new kind of politics” with her.

“I am coming tomorrow (Monday) to Lucknow to meet all of you. I have hope in my heart that together we will start a new kind of politics, a politics in which all of you will be stakeholders — my young friends, my sisters and even the weakest person,you’re your voices will be heard. Come with me to build this new future and this new politics,” Priyanka said in the message in Hindi.

Priyanka, who was appointed AICC General Secretary last month and given the charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, is visiting Lucknow along with AICC General Secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia and Congress President Rahul Gandhi.

Congress sources said Priyanka’s primary task was to make the party a force to reckon with for the assembly election in 2022 and at the same time try their best to improve the party’s prospects in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.