Rahul Gandhi’s visit annoys local leaders

Bhopal, Apr 18: The two-day visit of AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi in Bundelkhand has annoyed some of the local Congress leaders in the region. Besides party structure, three are two MLAs from the whole region having 47 constituencies.

Since, district Congress presidents of Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur and Panna could not accompany Rahul, they are nowadays busy in covering up the episode. These leaders are feeling shy to express their feelings as they have no explanation to why they were kept away from AICC general secretary's visit. Tikamgarh district Congress President Ravindra Adharvyuv told that his visit was important for the region and the dalits were happy to find such a big leader among them. However, he said, “Politically we have not gained anything because we were not told about his visit. It is quite difficult to answer the questions of people as why I was not informed about senior leader’s visit.”

He informed that on receipt of Rahul’s visit, he had reached the spot where the VIIP was but Uttar Pradesh Congress President Rita Bahugana Joshi asked him to leave. He feels that his experiences with former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s visit were entirely different. Jadgish Shukla of Chattarpur district who lost Bada Malehara assembly by-elections last year, against BJP candidate Kapoorchand Ghuwara said he had come to know in advance regarding Rahul’s visit because he was returning from Tikamgarh and on way to Panna. “On our request, he had visited Singro. In fact, we local Congress leaders and workers had joined him from Garroli, on the border of Tikamgarh and Chhatarpur,” he added.

Panna district Congress President Jai Prakash Patel, on the contrary said that he had no complaints because he was on ‘discover India mission’ and for security reasons, local leaders might have not been informed. However, he claimed that in an election year things would have been different if local leaders were involved. State Congress Spokesman Brijmohan Shrivastava told that it was an entirely different motive of Rahul’s visit in Bundelkhand. “He simply wants to know ground realities in the country. In his conversations with villagers he never tried to discriminate schemes backed by Centre or State Government,” he added. He asserted that it was not at al political visit and thus local leaders were kept aloof.