Rahul Gandhi to interact with UP leaders via video conferencing

The Gandhi scion, hard pressed for time owing to his election campaigns elsewhere in the country, decided to take the electronic route for crucial interaction, sources said.

Apart from wishing party workers on the occasion of Holi, the festival of colours, the Congress leader will evaluate the election preparations during his interaction with a selected group of 125 party leaders.

Besides offering the party's tickets for the polls, the Congress vice-president will take feedback on the issues faced by the party in the state.

The issues for campaigning for the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state will also be discussed, a party leader said.

During the interaction, conducted from the party headquarters in New Delhi, some senior leaders are expected to request Gandhi to fix time to address rallies in their constituencies.

Rahul Gandhi is contesting from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and his mother and Congress president will contest from Rae Bareli. The Congress has 22 members in the outgoing Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.

(Agencies)

Source: Online Current News

Naxals can escalate attacks during poll season: Report

The senior security official has also said that the Naxals are trying to prove their muscle during the upcoming general elections after their previous appeals to boycott the Chhattisgarh assembly elections failed last year.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has announced that the government would leave no stones unturned in dealing strictly with Naxal terror.

The Home Ministry on 17th February had sent letters to director generals and chief secretaries of the nine Naxal-hit states, alerting them about possible terror attacks before the upcoming elections.

The nine Naxal-hit states include Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

The security agencies on February 2 had obtained documents from Jamui district in Bihar. The documents had a blue print of the Naxal plan to boycott upcoming elections.

In one of the documents titled ‘Election Boycott’, all the regional commanders of the Naxals were ordered to increase attacks on security forces and political leaders, which would result in a situation of complete chaos, ultimately stopping people from reaching polling stations out of fear.

The deadly Naxal attack on security forces in Chhattisgarh, which claimed the lives of 15 security personnels, has been linked to this Naxal strategy only.

Senior security officials believe that the Naxals are peeved after their previous call of boycotting last year’s Chhattisgarh elections proved futile and that is why they would try hard to regain their fear-factor before the upcoming elections.

During the 2009 general elections, around 129 incidents of Naxal attack had transpired on the polling day, claiming 24 lives. In the 2004 general elections, nine people had lost their lives in 109 incidents of Naxal terror on polling day.

(JPN/Bureau)

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