Cong leaders led by Rahul to visit riot-affected areas in Delhi

Congress leaders, led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi, will visit riot-affected areas in Delhi on Wednesday to assess the situation on the ground.

Two separate party delegations left for different areas in northeast Delhi.

The first delegation, comprising mostly MPs, left in a bus from the Kerala House here and included Hibi Eden, Gurjeet Singh Aujla and Abdul Khaleque.

Their first stop was Chand Bagh where they met shopkeepers and asked them about the losses they suffered.

The second delegation included Gandhi, K C Venugopal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, K Suresh, Mukul Wasnik, Kumari Selja, Gaurav Gogoi and Randeep Surjewala.

This delegation plans to visit a private school in the Brijpuri area of Northeast Delhi which is now home to broken desks and burnt books after it was vandalised during the violence.

Arun Modern Senior Secondary School, which is over 32 years old, suffered damage estimated to be over Rs 70 lakh.

The Congress has been demanding that the issue of communal riots in Delhi be debated in Parliament and proceedings of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have been disrupted over the issue.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi last week had deputed a five-member team to visit the riot-affected areas of Delhi and submit a report to her after assessing the situation there.

The communal violence in northeast Delhi, which was sparked by protests over the amended Citizenship Act, and has left 42 dead and over 200 injured.