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On a visit to Amethi, Smriti Irani to engage with Rae Bareli too
This is the second time in last three months that her schedule includes a visit to Rae Bareli, indicating a possible Bharatiya Janata Party plan to engage with the lone Congress bastion in UP that the BJP has failed to breach, party leaders admit.
Three months after she defeated then Congress chief Rahul Gandhi from Amethi, Union minister for women and child development Smriti Irani is undertaking her third visit to the constituency on Wednesday.
Her day’s itinerary is spread nearly evenly between Amethi and Rae Bareli, the constituency of interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
This is the second time in last three months that her schedule includes a visit to Rae Bareli, indicating a possible Bharatiya Janata Party plan to engage with the lone Congress bastion in UP that the BJP has failed to breach, party leaders admit.
The BJP plan is two fold, party leaders say. “Along with ensuring massive development in Amethi to keep the Congress away from clawing its way back into electoral contention, the aim is also to engage with Rae Bareli,” say leaders.
“After Amethi, Rae Bareli also figures on our agenda. The last wish of BJP leader Arun Jaitley was to get 200 high mast towers installed in Rae Bareli for better lighting facilities there. You may see it as a Congress bastion but for us, it’s part of the country where we wish to usher in development,” says Hero Bajpai, former Rae Bareli in-charge of BJP who was also the local representative of Arun Jaitley.
The BJP also plans to target Congress on its opposition to revocation of Article 370 that ended special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Before leaving for Rae Bareli’s Chatoh block, where she would dedicate projects to people, Smriti will lay the foundation stone of Panchayat Resource Center at Amethi’s Gauriganj.
After addressing grassroots level workers, she is expected to inspect the under construction fire station coming up at the cost of above Rs 40 million (Rs 4 crore), a drinking water scheme worth more than Rs 10 million (Rs 1 crore plus) for village Sarai Hridayshah in Gauriganj, health and wellness centres worth Rs 6.3 million (Rs 63 lakh), a link road worth over Rs 120 million (Rs 12 crore) among various other things.
Smriti, who also has the charge of textile ministry, will also inaugurate Nand Ghar project, an initiative by Vedanta, a private NGO.
Nand Ghar projects are equipped with TV, e-learning facilities, provision for solar power, safe water and clean toilets to ‘empower’ women and children.
After this, she will go to Chatoh in Rae Bareli, her visit coming a day after Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi visited her mother’s constituency.
