Starting from where he left off in Bhatta-Parsaul and emboldened by the success of the Congress campaign against the Mayawati government on the land acquisition issue, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said, “there will be a Bhatta-Parsaul in every village,” to ensure the government's downfall.
“The Congress will fight the government at the ground zero level,” Mr. Gandhi said as he unveiled the party agenda for the 2012 Assembly elections at the 83rd convention of the Uttar Pradesh Congress at the Cutting Memorial Intermediate College ground here.
Taking upon himself the task of leading the Congress charge, Mr. Gandhi declared: “I will go to each and every corner of the State, to each village and each city, will fight as a comrade in arms with the party workers. But the fight is not limited to winning the next elections, but for making a better future for Uttar Pradesh.” Mr. Gandhi said there was no dearth of (poll) issues as the government in the State was not functioning, a fact not only known to it, but also to the people. He dismissed the charge that the party did not have a vote bank. “The Congress vote bank is the poor people of Uttar Pradesh.”
At the two-day convention Mr. Gandhi launched a blistering attack on the State government and said the Central funds were being misused. He said he wanted U.P. to progress like the rest of the country.
Mr. Gandhi said if, according to the State government, the situation was normal in Bhatta-Parsaul, then why was section 144 imposed in the villages? “If the situation was normal why were the people forced to flee the villages, and why has a judicial probe not been ordered?” the Amethi MP said. Mr. Gandhi said if a free and fair probe was conducted the truth would surface.
Narrating his experience in Bhatta-Parsaul, the Congress general secretary slammed the Sub-divisional magistrate of Greater Noida for stating that Naxalites and Maoists had infiltrated the villages.
Mr. Gandhi said when he entered the Bhatta-Parsaul villages they were deserted as “the people had fled leaving the women behind.”
The Congress general secretary said the poor farmers told him that they were not against development, but “could not fathom why they were beaten up and their houses set afire.”
Referring to Bundelkhand, he said the Bahujan Samaj Party made its beginning from the region but the State government had done nothing to end the misery of the people. The roads were full of potholes, there was no water and the people had migrated elsewhere.
Mr. Gandhi said he met the Prime Minister and secured a package for Bundelkand, yet the Chief Minister was not ready to accept that the situation in the region was bad.
He said the Congressmen should stop worrying about the Samajwadi Party, the BSP and the Peace Party. “Instead, the Congress should try to know what the party was doing for the people of the State.”
The political and economic resolution was moved by the Water Resources Minister Salman Khurshid and was seconded by Union Minister of Steel Beni Prasad Verma. The convention will end on Thursday with Congress president Sonia Gandhi's address which would be followed by her public meeting at Beniya Bagh.
