Rahul's maiden public meeting after disqualification postponed to April 16

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's event, which was supposed to take place on April 10 has been postponed further and now it will be held on April 16 at Kolar, Karnataka Congress unit president D K Shivakumar said on Saturday.

Gandhi had planned to address people on April 10 at the same place where his speech during 2019 Lok Sabha elections had led to his disqualification from the lower house of the Parliament, Shivakumar told reporters here.

However, due to the Assembly election related works and the selection of candidates, the party leaders requested him to extend it by a week.

"We had requested Rahul Gandhi to extend the public meeting by a week and he gave his consent. Gandhi and all leaders will come on April 16 for the Jai Bharat' event at Kolar," Shivakumar said.

He added that this will be Gandhi's first public address in Kolar after his disqualification from the Lok Sabha. He also said that Gandhi's disqualification was an insult to democracy.

"Cancelling the Lok Sabha membership of Rahul Gandhi, who had won with a margin of seven lakh votes, is an insult to the entire democracy, Shivakumar said.

According to the Congress sources, Gandhi's event was earlier planned on April 5, which was changed to April 6. Then it was again planned on April 9, which clashed with Prime Minister's Project Tiger' event in Mysuru. The date was then resheduled to April 10 and now once again it has been postponed to April 16.