With Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh looming, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit Lucknow on February 18 to felicitate 500 leaders from the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (SC/ST) communities who were brought into the party fold recently.
The event will also be used to address a recent case of caste-based conflict that emerged in the party’s unit in Ghaziabad. A week ago, the party faced heavy criticism after The Hindu reported that Jatinder Gaur, the chairman of its Dalit cell in Ghaziabad district, had written a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi, narrating how he was thrown out of a crucial party meeting just because he was a Dalit. The issue put Mr.Gaur in the media spotlight, giving enough fodder to the BJP high command to launch a scathing attack on the Congress.
Party sources said that Mr.Gaur has been invited to Lucknow where Mr.Gandhi would meet him. Apart from that, Mr.Gandhi would start his day by listening to senior party leaders Mukul Wasnik, K.Raju, Kumari Selja and Nirmal Khatri, who will speak on issues ranging from Dalit empowerment to the party’s shrinking support in the underprivileged communities of Uttar Pradesh.
“We have carried some surveys to find out why we lost our Dalit voters to Mayawati and we have come to some striking conclusions,” said Bhagwati Chaudhary, senior Congress leader and the chairman of UP Scheduled Caste cell.
