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Just like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘chai pe charcha’ where he connects with various sections while sipping tea over the internet, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will take part in a ‘Google Hangout’ on March 15, where he will interact with block, district and Pradesh Congress Committee presidents to give them pep talk on the coming elections and to get their feedback on their states and their districts. Renu Mittal reports
The logistics of this exercise are being taken care of by advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s advisor on public information, infrastructure and innovation Sam Pitroda. After Rahul’s ‘hangout’ with the party men, 30 young leaders of the Congress would hold similar interactions with various sections of the people, particularly the youth.
While the exercise is aimed at reaching out to the largest number of people who are active on the social media, a senior leader said it is only a limited exercise as it is confined to the urban areas and may not have much impact since people are disenchanted with the Congress after 10 years of rule and is fed up of both corruption and price rise.
Even as the idea may have been inspired by Modi’s chai outings, Rahul on Tuesday launched his strongest-ever attack on Modi likening him to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. The Congress vice president had in the past also compared Modi to Hitler.
"Is stealing the farmer’s land chowkidari? This is called theft and not chowkidari," Gandhi said addressing a rally in Balasinor in Gujarat, the first destination of his tour programme. Modi has been saying in his rallies that he will work like a chowkidar of the nation's treasury if the BJP government came to power.
Rahul also associated Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel with the Congress saying they were the leaders who built the Congress and simply putting up statues without knowing the history would not help the Bharatiya Janata Party. He said that the problem with the BJP was that it was full of hate and anger while the Congress was only about love.
The Congress vice president has been criss-crossing the country, holding meetings and rallies, interacting with the workers and reaching out to various sections and interest groups, but so far it appears that he has been unable to make any dent in winning people over to his party.
The Congress leadership itself appears to be in a panic mode as the party after bringing in party Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh’s his wife Amita Singh a ticket from Sultanpur, and at the same time appears to have prevailed upon the Samajwadi Party not to put up candidates in Amethi and Rae Bareilly.
These appear to be sure shot signs that all is not well even in the family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareilly.The Congress has already announced 194 seats and the rest will soon follow, as the central election committee will be meeting again on Wednesday.
The party has also officially announced separate PCC presidents, campaign committees, manifesto committees for both Seemandhra and Telangana with the two states set to contest the elections separately.
However, no candidates have yet been announced from the region even as there is no word on whether the Congress and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi would contest as an alliance in Telangana or separately.