Lucknow : Three months after his May 18, visit to Amethi during which he raised the issue of the so-called abandonment of the mega food park project initiated by him, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was back in Amethi on August 18 (Tuesday). And this time also, he had harsh words for the Narendra Modi government and for Prime Minister Modi himself.
He landed in Lucknow on August 18, on the first day of his two-day visit and drove to Amethi.
At the Lucknow airport, there was a huge crowd of Congress workers who wished to apprise him of the police lathi charge a day earlier on a Congress protest procession in Lucknow. However, Rahul did not meet them but it is learnt that he may visit the hospital to meet the injured when he returns from Amethi. After arriving in Amethi, he went to Shukul Bazaar to address a gathering farmers and later visited the house of senior leader Mannan Khan who passed away recently.
In late afternoon, he addressed a gathering of farmers at Tirhut inter college in Amethi.
In his address to the local people, Rahul attacked Modi, alleging that the NDA government was working only in the interest of industrialists.
He claimed that the Congress alone could protect the interests of the country and farmers, for which the party needs to be strengthened.He referred to the Centre’s Land Acquisition Bill, and said the Bill aimed to acquire the land of farmers, “but the Congress had stoutly opposed the Bill,” he said. He also reminded the people of “What happened to Modi’s promise of getting back black money from abroad?” he asked,
The Modi government, he alleged, had also changed the parameters of measuring the economic growth to claim that it was growing at a good rate.
His visit comes before the BJP’s proposed meetings and press conferences at those 44 places that are represented by the Congress in Lok Sabha.
On the second day of his visit (August 19), Rahul is scheduled to address a meeting of local people and Congress workers at Munshiganj, after which he will visit a couple of villages to address gatherings before leaving for Lucknow.
Incidentally, several Congress workers, including leaders such as UPCC president Nirmal Khatri and Raj Babbar, were injured when police tried to stop them from marching towards the Assembly building in Lucknow on Monday (August 17).
Many of them are in hospital with injuries and fractures. In another coincidence with Rahul’s May visit, the Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani, too is scheduled to visit Amethi on August 26. In May too, Smriti had visited Amethi on May 26.
