 "Khat Yatra, Rahul Gandhi, Congress, UP")
Unfazed over criticism related to his visit to a Lord Hanuman temple in Ayodhya last week, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will pray at the popular Vindhyachal Devi temple in Mirzapur on Wednesday but balance it out by visiting the Kantit Sharif dargah as well.
The visit is part of the kisan yatra Rahul is undertaking in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The leader would cover around 164 km on Wednesday, spread across Mirzapur, Bhadohi and Allahabad districts, following a usual mix of khat sabhas (pictured) and public meetings along the way.
After Rahul prayed at the well-known Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya on Friday last but skipped the controversial Ram Janmabhoomi makeshift temple nearby, the Congress leader faced charges of pursuing soft Hindutva from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Sources said a visit to the Vindhyachal Devi temple, a popular deity in eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP), would come shortly after the visit to the dargah and is meant to send the right signals to the electorate. The yatra will also take Rahul to Allahabad, which has organic links with the Nehru-Gandhi family. Rahul will stay at Swaraj Bhavan, adjacent to Anand Bhavan, where Pt Jawaharlal Nehru lived. The two houses played host to the Congress, as its national headquarters during the country’s freedom struggle.
“This is a very important visit. Rahul will be at his ancestral home. Anand Bhavan and Swaraj Bhavan were the Congress headquarters during the freedom struggle and several Congress Working Committee meetings were held there,” Congress veteran Anil Shastri told Business Standard, adding, “The visit will boost the morale of local party workers.”
“Rahul’s visit will emotionally connect with the people of the city, as the Nehru family belongs to Allahabad,” said Rajya Sabha member Pramod Tiwari.
However, party insiders acknowledged the challenge for the Congress leadership is to revive the party in the city as well as UP, as it moved to the margins over the past two decades.
According to UP Congress spokesperson Kishor Varshney, after spending the night at Swaraj Bhavan, Rahul’s kisan yatra will criss-cross through parts of Allahabad on September 15, covering city north, city south and city west Assembly constituencies. “He will pay tributes to freedom fighters, who were hanged by the British at the historic neem tree in the chowk area,” said Varshney.
