Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, Smriti Irani in Rahul Gandhi's Amethi today: 10 points

BJP leaders Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Smriti Irani will land in Rahul Gandhi's constituency Amethi to unveil a series of projects in the Gandhi bastion.

 

IndiaToday.in  | Posted by Ankit Misra
New Delhi, October 10, 2017 | UPDATED 10:35 IST
Amit Shah, Adityanath and Smriti Irani.Amit Shah, Adityanath and Smriti Irani.

Days after Rahul Gandhi's visit to his Lok Sabha constituency, Amethi, a galaxy of high-profile BJP leaders, including its chief Amit Shah, will land in the Uttar Pradesh town to unveil a series of projects in the Gandhi bastion that the Congress vice-president has represented for 13 straight years.

The others to accompany Shah include Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister Smriti Irani, who reached Amethi on Monday evening. Irani had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Amethi against Rahul Gandhi.

THE TOP TEN DEVELOPMENTS SO FAR:
  1. Party sources said the visit of the senior BJP leaders was aimed at sending a clear message that the current dispensation believed in an all-round development and was not meting out "step-motherly treatment" to a Congress constituency.
  2. Rahul Gandhi had, during his visit to Amethi on October 5, accused the BJP governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh of re-inaugurating the projects launched by the previous UPA regime in the district and neglecting his constituency.
  3. The visit of the BJP heavyweights is aimed at announcing various schemes and projects. Among other key events, Information and Broadcasting minister Irani will attend the launch of an FM station at Gauriganj and an initiative to save Gomti river near Pipri village.
  4. Irani will also attend the inauguration of a tuberculosis unit at the district hospital and a primary health centre at Odari Tiloi.
  5. Soon after her arrival at Chowdhary Charan Singh Airport in Lucknow on Monday, Irani drove in a cavalcade to Amethi. She made a stopover at Rae Bareli, the parliamentary constituency of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, where she interacted with party workers and visited the residence of local BJP legislator Dal Bahadur Kori.
  6. On Monday, Irani had accused Rahul of "insulting" the people of Gujarat and claimed that the Congress will suffer what she called a "historic defeat" in the upcoming Assembly polls. Irani's attack on the Congress vice-president came after he mocked the BJP's development model in Gujarat at his public meetings in the poll-bound state.
  7. Gandhi should devote time to Amethi, his Lok Sabha seat, as it needs more development works, she said, claiming that people of Amethi are asking for 'vikas' even as their MP goes around the nation mocking 'vikas'.
  8. Amethi has traditionally been a Congress bastion, but witnessed a high-pitched electoral battle between Rahul and Irani in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Though she lost, Irani managed to reduce the Congress leader's victory margin from around 3.70 lakh votes in 2009 to 1.07 lakh in 2014.
  9. In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, the BJP won six of the 10 Assembly seats falling under the Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies. Four of these were in Amethi.
  10. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is on a three-day trip to Gujarat, where he has consistently attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Gujarat model. He has also invoked the recent controversy involving Amit Shah's son Jay and his financial dealings as exposed by The Wire news website.

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