Agitated over the apathy of Jhansi officials towards grievances of the villagers, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi sat on dharna near the Divisional Commissioner’s office in the town in Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
After failing to persuade Rahul to lift the dharna, the district officials opened the office gate to let him in with the villagers.
Accompanied by around 200 people, Rahul walked into the DC’s office where villagers told Divisional Commissioner PV Jaganmohan and other officers about their plight.
“We have BPL cards but don’t get any ration from the public distribution outlets,” they said. Others said they are yet to get BPL cards.
Many villagers said they had neither been issued job cards nor given jobs under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Others said gram pradhans had not distributed job cards. Many complained they were not paid wages for working under the NREGS.
They also drew the attention of the DC to irregularities in the distribution of old age and widow pensions. The welfare schemes were not reaching them, they said.
People from the Bundelkhand region, which is in the grip of a drought, said the government’s relief programme had not reached them. They told the officers they were not getting any food or drinking water.
{{/usCountry}}People from the Bundelkhand region, which is in the grip of a drought, said the government’s relief programme had not reached them. They told the officers they were not getting any food or drinking water.
{{/usCountry}}The villagers handed over about 250 memorandums to the DC.
Since Tuesday Rahul has been on a ‘reality check’ in Bundelkhand, visiting villages to get a first-hand account of the various government schemes.