Rahul Gandhi’s three-day UP visit starts today, to host ‘chaupal’ for farmers, meetings with party workers

Rahul Gandhi (Source: Twitter)

During his three-day visit to the state starting Wednesday, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is slated to hold ‘chaupals’ with farmers as well as meetings with party workers and locals separately in his parliamentary constituency Amethi, and Rae Bareli, the constituency of his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi.

“On October 4, he will hold chaupal in Kathora village of Jagdishpur area in Amethi and will also visit different villages of his constituency,” said Chandrakant Dubey, Rahul’s representative.  Kathora is the same village for which Rahul had visited the office of the National Highway Authority of India in Lucknow two months ago with farmers alleging discrepancies in compensation given to them in exchange for land being acquired for a road project. At the ‘chaupal’, Rahul will “listen to grievances” of the farmers.

On October 5, the Congress leader will interact with the public at the Munshiganj guesthouse and later meet party workers at Rajiv Gandhi Degree College in Amethi. He will also visit several areas in Salon Vidhan Sabha constituency, after which he will travel to Rae Bareli. There, he will stay the night at the Bhuvemau guesthouse. On October 6, he will meet with locals before returning to New Delhi.

This will be Rahul’s first visit to Amethi after Congress suffered a major loss in the state Assembly elections around six months ago. The visit also holds significance as BJP national president Amit Shah and a host of Union ministers are set to camp in Rahul’s constituency on October 10 for the inaugurations of some development projects.

On September 30, the Amethi district administration had in a letter to Rahul requested him to change the date of his visit, expressing difficulty in providing him security as police personnel were already deployed to maintain law and order during Durga Puja and Moharram.
However, the dates of the visit were not changed. “After issuing the advisory, the district administration is now saying that their intention was misunderstood. They have said that they would now provide security,” said Dubey.

Yogesh Kumar, District Magistrate, Amethi told The Indian Express, “We have been informed about his (Rahul’s) three-day visit and will provide him security. First of all, security was never denied to him. The district administration can never deny security to a Member of Parliament. We had just requested him to shift his visit because of ongoing festive season and deployment of police force elsewhere. Police force has also come from adjoining districts for Durga visarjan and other arrangements.”