Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 30
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi is again abroad for meditation even as his party plans a pan-India anti-BJP agitation from November 5 to 15 with special focus on economic crisis, unemployment, farm distress and “adverse” impact of the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement.
Congress general secretary organisation KC Venugopal said the agitation would be held in state capitals followed by protests in district headquarters. The agitation programme will culminate in a massive event in New Delhi in the last week of November, Venugopal added.
He said the AICC had deputed 31 senior Congress leaders as observers in various states to monitor the agitation programme across the country. Senior Congress leaders will hold press conferences in major cities starting November 1.
Top Congress sources confirmed that Rahul was in Indonesia and his return schedule was not known. This is Rahul’s second trip abroad since the Congress lost the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.
Congress leaders while defending Gandhi’s right to travel said he was not required for the national agitation against the BJP.
“Rahul Gandhi is abroad. He was part of the meeting where the contours of the agitation were planned. He guided the agitation plan,” Congress media head Randeep Surjewala said today.
The jury is however out on Rahul’s consistency as a politician especially when his party leaders in Maharashtra have, in a detour from the past, kept the options for working with the Shiv Sena open and the issue of government formation in Maharashtra remains open.
As the BJP and Shiv Sena harden their respective stands on power-sharing formula in Maharashtra, Surjewala said the situation was evolving and the decision on it would be taken by AICC general secretary, Maharashtra, Mallikarjun Kharge and local leaders in the state.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2Nwd274
via Today’s News Headlines
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