After a month of seeming procrastination, the Congress
leadership will finally come in contact with potential voters with
vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s road show in South Delhi’s Kalkaji Assembly
constituency on Tuesday.
To be followed by at least two large public meetings, one of
which will be addressed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi early next month,
the party consistently postponed these due to Mr. Gandhi’s non-availability
throughout January, according to an informed party source.
According to insiders, the party had initially planned to
hold a massive public rally intended as a show of strength before the
notification of the polls earlier this month at Ramlila Maidan. However, these
plans were shelved after the BJP beat them by announcing Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s rally on January 10.
Meanwhile, the party, according to a source, booked the same
venue for three consecutive days from January 14 to 16 but later postponed the
booking for January 16 to 18 given Mr. Gandhi’s “unavailability”.
“The decision was taken after he couldn’t make it to
Foundation Day celebrations on December 28 and was also absent from a meeting
of all party general secretaries over the land ordinance issue despite it being
his pet project,” a source told The Hindu .
This, according to an insider, was the reason behind a group
of Delhi Congress leaders approaching Ms. Gandhi with a request that both she
and Mr. Gandhi play a ‘larger role’ and become ‘more visible’ in the party’s
campaign for the Delhi elections.
A senior party leader, however, attributed the postponement
of these meetings to an added emphasis on grassroots campaigning by candidates.
“Such rallies have usually been held before the announcement of candidates…
This time, it was decided to give local leaders a chance to organise their own
campaigns and gauge the public mood first instead of holding a rally sans
adequate knowledge of electoral issues that needed to be addressed,” the leader
said.
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