Rahul Gandhi Delays Amethi Visit To Attend Rafale Debate In Parliament

Congress president Rahul Gandhi postponed his tour timings for Amethi on Friday due to the ongoing Rafale discussion in the Parliament.

Mr Gandhi, who was scheduled to address a programme in Amethi around 4.30 pm today, will now leave for Amethi after the Parliament session and reach Fursatganj in the evening.

The political atmosphere in Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Rahul Gandhi, is expected to be charged today as the Congress president and Union Minister Smriti Irani are scheduled to visit the town at the same time.  

During his visit, Mr Gandhi will meet the people of his constituency, attend public and party reception events, hold 'corner meetings' and attend a function of newly-appointed party spokespersons. He will be travelling to Salon Nagar, Pardeshpur, Naseerabad, Paraiya Namaskar, and Gauriganj on January 4 before reaching Amethi in the night.

On January 5, after spending some time in Amethi, the Congress president will travel to Musafirkhana tehsil, Jagdishpur and Tiloyi, where he will meet the family members of veteran Congress leader Shiv Pratap Singh, who died last week after a prolonged illness, before reaching Lucknow to catch a flight back to Delhi.

It will be the Congress president's first visit to the constituency after his party's victories in the recent assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Ms Irani, on the other hand, will attend a programme organised by an NGO, Raghav Sewa Sansthan, during which blankets and financial assistance will be extended to those in need. She will also lay the foundation stone for a school in the area.

The two leaders have been fighting over the development of Amethi, with Ms Irani maintaining that the constituency had suffered despite the Gandhi family representing it in the Lok Sabha for decades.  

Mr Gandhi, a Member of Parliament from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, had defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate Smriti Irani from this Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 elections. Ms Irani is expected to contest from the Amethi seat once again in the 2019 polls for which she has been making frequent trips to gather support.

Though the two leaders have visited the area several times in the last five years, this is the first time they will be in Amethi together at the same time.