Reach out to villages: Rahul tells Tamil Nadu Youth Congress
By IANSThursday, December 23, 2010
CHENNAI - Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday urged cadres of the Youth Congress to reach out to villages and strengthen the party at the grassroots level so that the Congress can come to power in Tamil Nadu at a future date.
Gandhi, on a two-day Tamil Nadu tour, reiterated that the party can go it alone in the state assembly elections only when it is built at the panchayat and ward level.
He met officials of the state Youth Congress at Tirunelvelli, Tirupur and Tiruchirapalli (Trichy).
On Thursday morning, he reached Tirunelvelli from Madurai where he had spent the previous night.
Addressing the youth wing officials at Tirunelvelli, he urged them to focus their energies at the panchayat level so that the party can grow in strength.
He said the party’s youth wing cadres should meet the rural people and take remedial measures to alleviate their sufferings and ask them to follow only the Congress party’s ideals and policies and not of any other party.
Gandhi later reached Tirupur and met the Youth Congress officials there.
At the hosiery town of Tirupur, cadres belonging to BJP, Shiv Sena, and Hindu Makkal Katchi attempted to show black flags to Gandhi to protest his comments against Hindu organisations.
The protestors flew balloons with black flags near the venue where Gandhi was meeting the Youth Congress officials.
At Coimbatore, the police arrested around 30 people belonging to Shiv Sena for holding demonstrations against Gandhi.
Some people tied black ribbons to the legs of two doves and set them free to mark their protest.
The protests were against Gandhi’s statement to US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer about radical Hindu groups being a greater threat to India than Islamic terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Gandhi’s statement was leaked by WikiLeaks recently.
At Trichy he invited women to join the Congress party as it has reserved 50 percent seats for them in the Panchayat elections, and said in the longer run there is a possibility of a female Congress chief minister in the state.
Citing great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, P. Kakkan and K. Kamraj, he told the Youth Congress that even six among them willing to take up people’s cause can bring about a political change in the state.
