India's leading politician Priyanka Gandhi takes river route for election campaign

NEW DELHI, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the general secretary of Indian National Congress (INC), kicked off her election campaign on Monday in the run up to the general elections, on a steamer down the Ganga river.

The sister of INC's President Rahul Gandhi, began her steamer journey from Prayagraj, a city famous for the confluence of three rivers -- Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati, to the holy city Varanasi where she will reach on Wednesday. Both Prayagraj and Varanasi are located in northern state Uttar Pradesh, which is India's biggest state in terms of number of parliament constituencies. It has a total of 80 parliamentary constituencies out of the total 543 that go to polls every five years.

On the way, she would have several stops to meet her party workers, students, women and general public while campaigning for her party, said INC sources.

This is perhaps the first occasion when a politician in India chooses a waterway to carry out an election campaign.

Priyanka's 140-km river journey will pass through several towns and cities. After her appointment as INC general secretary a few weeks ago, she was made in charge of 41 parliamentary constituencies falling in eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh.

Both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi are the children of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, grand-children of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and great grand-children of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

With the largest number of parliamentary constituencies in the country, Uttar Pradesh will witness polling of votes in all the seven phases of the elections, scheduled from April 11 to May 19.

The counting of votes is slated to take place on May 23.