The Congress insists that it would reclaim its lost ground before the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, but the party first needs to find some ground for itself.

The Congress does not have an office in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh, and functions through WhatsApp.

The party leaders said that they had apprised Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra of the situation, but there was no response from the party so far.

The newly appointed district Congress president Nirmala Paswan, however, said that the party will soon get its new office.

According to senior party leader Syed Jamal, former district president late Bhrigunath Chaturvedi had started the Congress office in Purdilpur here and this remained the party office till 2017.

"But we had to vacate the office in 2017 because the ownership rights were with someone else. Since then the Congress does not have a proper office of its own, and meetings are usually held in marriage halls," he said.

Party leaders are informally using a house in Charuchandrapuri as a makeshift office.

"But most of the time, we work through WhatsApp. When meetings are to be held, we hire marriage halls," said a party functionary.