Even as the Congress awaits the return of its vice-president Rahul Gandhi from his sabbatical, posters have appeared in Amethi declaring that the local MP was “missing.”
Pasted at markets, railway and bus stations, the posters in Hindi are titled “Missing Amethi MP”, and ask people to launch a manhunt to find the “missing” leader.
With Mr. Gandhi still to return, people in his Lok Sabha constituency have now started asking about the promises made by him to visit Amethi and look into problems being faced by his electorate at least once every month. The “missing” posters, published by “residents”, read — “We don’t know where you have disappeared to; no letters, no messages; where are you?” The poster then lists 10 problems being faced by the people related to poor healthcare, education and civic infrastructure.
It has been a month since Mr. Gandhi was granted leave of absence from active politics by his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to do “chintan” for revival of the party that suffered a huge defeat in the Lok Sabha polls last year. Mr. Gandhi’s absence just at the start of the monsoon session of Parliament had caused a stir within the party.
