With Bharatiya Janta Party, Samajwadi Party, Aam Adami Party (AAP) pushing their entire strength to score over each other during their rallies on Sunday at lucknow, Allahabad, and Kanpur respectively, Congress leaders too were not leaving any stone unturned to make Rahul’s road-show in Barabanki on Friday and later a rally at Mirjapur a grand success. Interestingly, the Party also alleged large scale misuse of money in both BJP and SP rallies.
``Election Commission should conduct an enquiry that how many crores of rupees has been spent on rally of BJP at lucknow. They hired several dozen of trains, thousands of buses and four-wheelers and made several other five star arrangements just to save themselves from embarrassment of failing to touch even 50,000 mark when the leaders already claimed a turn-out of 25 lakh supporters", alleged spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC), Amarnath Agarwal, alleging that the BJP had spend more than 100 crores to attract crowd. He also accused SP for making similar wastage of money and also for using government machninery for their Allahabad rally.
Attacking the two parties here on Thursday evening, Congress spokesman also accused both SP and BJP of having a tactical understanding. ``The manner in which the state government handed over several schools and other government buildings to BJP to make their rally successful itself speaks that how the two party shake hand to polarise the voters in the coming elections", charged Amarnath while accusing both the parties for organising rallies on the same day just to show that only they were in fight in the State.
Amarnath Agarwal further said that the Congress never believe to attract crowd by using `Money Power’, and they always tried to connect with the public directly hence the Party Vice-President, Rahul Gandhi had decided to stage a road-show in Barabanki, to interact directly with the Anganwadi Workers and Mid-day meal cooks in Chinhat at lucknow, rickshaw pullers at Varanasi and lastly to address a Youth Congress rally in Mirjapur. He alleged that the Anganwadi workers were agitating to press their demands for the last several months in lucknow but the SP government never looked into their grievances.
It may be mentioned that Rahul Gandhi will finally kick start the Party’s campaign for formation of United Progressive Alliance (Third) in the Centre on Friday. Rahul's who will be on a two day visit to the State would land in lucknow on Friday morning. He is first schedule to make interaction with the editors of the prominent local newspapers at a star hotel on VVIP Road. later he will take Saheed Path to reach Surendranagar in Chinahat where he will meet the women of Anganbadi and mid-day meal cooks. Rahul is likely to hold a chupal with them before he would further proceed by road to Dewa where he will offer a `chadar’ and seek blessings. From there, Rahul
Gandhi would hold a `road show’ and he will pass through Barabanki city to reach Safedabad area of the district. On way, Rahul will stop in villages for direct interaction with the people as well as Party leaders and motivate them to work for victory of the Congress. All along the route from Amauasi till Safedabad, huge gates would be erected and the entire route will be decorated to give a warm welcome to Rahul by the Party leaders. Rahul will also stop at several places to except greetings of the public. After a night stay, the Congress vice-president will reach Varanasi and will visit Kashi Vishwanath temple for darshan of Baba Vishwanath and seek blessings of the deity. He will later also meet the Rickshaw pullers in the temple town and hold a chaupal. later in the day he will address a `Sadbhavna youth rally’ in Mirzapur before returning to New Delhi. This would be the first time that Rahul Gandhi will venture out of Amethi, his lok Sabha constituency, in UP during which he will campaign for the Party. local MP from Barabanki, Pl Puniya, state president, Nirmal Khatri would also accompany Rahul during the tour.
