Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday said that the party has decided to give 40 per cent of the total election tickets to women candidates in Uttar Pradesh for the upcoming assembly polls.

The Congress is facing an uphill task of taking on contenders like the BJP, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party is a multi-cornered contest in UP where all the major parties have announced to go it alone.

On Sunday, the Congress announced that Priyanka Gandhi will be the face of the Congress’ election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, asserting that the AICC general secretary is the most popular political figure in the state at present.

Party’s newly-appointed campaign committee chief P L Punia noted that very rarely has the Congress announced a chief ministerial face and said that not having declared one till now will not hamper the party’s chances as it already has a personality like Priyanka Gandhi to lead the charge against the BJP.

It is a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP in the UP polls as both the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have “fallen behind” and were “not in the fight anymore”, Punia told PTI.

The Congress on Friday constituted different panels for the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, with Punia being named head of the crucial campaign committee. The campaign committee has Pradeep Jain Aditya as the convenor and includes the likes of Mohsina Kidwai, Pramod Tewari, Raj Babbar, R P N Singh, Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Imran Masood and Imran Pratapgarhi.

The latest ABP-CVoter pre-poll survey has predicted a comfortable victory for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. The survey indicates that while the BJP may lose some seats this time compared to the 2017 polls, it is expected to win the polls by securing a simple majority.

In terms of the seat, the NDA is likely to get around 241 to 249 seats, fairly above the majority mark of 202. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party may get somewhere between 130 to 138 seats while Mayawati’s BSP may have to settle with 15-19 seats and Congress with just three to seven seats.