SP-Cong joint road show in Varanasi postponed

Congress has postponed the joint road show of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav scheduled for tomorrow here amid a huge rush of pilgrims arriving in the city on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti, a party leader said today.
Congress district unit president Prajanath Sharma said the event was postponed to avoid difficulties to the pilgrims visiting the Sant Ravidas temple here.
It could be held either on February 17 or 18, he said.
"We received a call from the Rahul's office in New Delhi about the postponement of the road show which was scheduled for tomorrow," Sharma said.

There were reports that the district administration had denied permission for the road show.
Sharma, however, said that the district administration had fully cooperated with them and that they had not denied them permission. He said it only tried to bring our attention to the huge rush of pilgrims arriving in the city on the occasion of Ravidas Jayanti.

When contacted, Additional District Magistrate (city) Jitendra Singh said a notice was served to the local congress party leader yesterday as they had not contacted the administration about the road show.
"We sent them a notice yesterday morning asking them to give the details about their roadshow. Though the district administration had not denied them permission, they themselves postponed the event by late yesterday evening," he said.

Rahul and Akhilesh have so far held two joint road shows after a pre-poll alliance between the two parties, first in Lucknow on January 29 and the second in Agra on February 3, reflecting the new found bonhomie between the two parties in the poll-bound state.
Out of the 403 assembly seats, SP would be contesting 298 and Congress the rest 105.
There would be a three-cornered fight between BJP, BSP and SP-Congress alliance in UP.