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Amethi braces for Rahul Gandhi, Smriti Irani’s visits on same day
Both Congress and BJP leaders said the two high profile visits would have to be carefully coordinated to avoid a showdown among the party cadres.
t could well be 2019’s first political face- off when Congress chief Rahul Gandhi starts his two-day visit to his Lok Sabha constituency, Amethi, on Friday with union minister Smriti Irani also planning to go there the same day.
Local leaders of both the Congress and the BJP confirmed the plan by their party leaders to visit Amethi. However, local administration officials said an official confirmation was awaited.
“I have received a report that the Special Protection Group (SPG) team, which covers the honourable Amethi MP, is to visit the district on Wednesday for the proposed two-day visit of the leader from Friday. As for the union minister’s programme, they have their own protocol,” Amethi district magistrate Shakuntala Gautam said.
However, Amethi BJP chief Uma Shankar Pandey and Congress leader Nadeem Ashraf Jaisi, who hails from Jais in Amethi, confirmed visits by their party leaders while claiming ignorance about the rival leader’s plan.
Both Congress and BJP leaders said the two high profile visits would have to be carefully coordinated to avoid a showdown among the party cadres.
Irani was fielded by the BJP in the 2014 elections to make inroads in the Gandhi family pocket borough. She did lose the battle, but managed to succeed in reducing the Congress leader’s victory margin to one lakh votes in 2014, down from three lakh five years earlier.
During her previous Amethi visit timed to coincide with the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, union minister Smriti Irani had used hundreds of high-yield plants gifted by Congress president Rahul Gandhi to farmers in Amethi to launch a fresh attack at him. Irani faulted him for distributing the Israeli variety of the plant.
“The Congress couldn’t even find a desi banana for Amethi,” Irani had said at a function in November.
In the New Year, Irani is scheduled to build on her association with Amethi.
“Smritiji would inaugurate a CT scan facility at Gauriganj district hospital and she is later scheduled to attend a blanket distribution programme to the poor,” Pandey said. The Congress leaders have started preparing for the visit by their party chief. “For Rahulji, it’s not a political visit. He is visiting his family. There are various functions that have been lined up,” said UP Congress leader Devendra Pratap Singh, who, however, claimed ignorance about Smriti’s visit.
“It could be a tightrope walk for the district administration given the charged environment ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” a BJP leader said, while admitting that Amethi was among those Lok Sabha constituencies where his party was planning to mount an offensive, specifically aimed at pinning the Congress top leaders in their own constituencies. “Let them try. The BJP should learn lesson from assembly poll results. If not, then they are welcome to burn their fingers again,” said Devendra Pratap of the Congress.
