Putting at rest endless speculation about Rahul Gandhi’s return from his much-talked about “leave of absence,” Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh said on Monday that the party vice-president would be back in action later this month to join the agitation against the land acquisition ordinance.
However, it was not clear whether Mr. Gandhi would be leading the Congress campaign against the NDA government’s proposed land legislation. Meanwhile, the ambiguity over whether Mr. Gandhi will be anointed party president continued with senior party leader Sandeep Dikshit telling a TV channel that Sonia Gandhi would continue to lead the party. Also, in an exclusive interview to The Hindu last week, Congress leader Amarinder Singh echoed the same sentiment.
Asked about the ambiguity, Mr. Digvijaya Singh said: “Who has ever said that Sonia Gandhiji should not be president?”
The Congress’ anti-Land Bill farmers’ rally to be held at the Ramlila Maidan here on April 19 will be led by Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Singh said. Questioning the government’s “haste” in bringing the ordinance, Mr. Singh said: “The BJP has always been anti-poor, anti-village, anti-farmer...their government wants to grab land from farmers and hand it over to corporates.”
“The Land Acquisition Act, after deliberations of two and a half years, was passed unanimously in Parliament...the select committee that reviewed the Act was headed by Sumitra Mahajan. We accepted 24 of her 26 recommendations. So what has suddenly changed after the new government came to power, that Mr. Modi had to bring an ordinance?” he asked.
