By IANS
New Delhi : While birthday boy Rahul Gandhi was incommunicado, Congress workers celebrated the day Tuesday by distributing notebooks and clothes to the poor, and organising blood donation camps and even a wrestling competition!
Enthusiastic party workers, anxious to celebrate Rahul's 38th birthday, were only told that he was out of town. Nobody was really sure where Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's MP son was.
Not that it mattered.
Though Rahul is believed to have given strict instructions that there should be no extravagant celebrations, it was nonetheless occasion for party workers, especially Youth Congress activists in various parts of the country, to organise programmes to show their loyalty to the young leader.
Sources in the Congress party said he had left directions at his office and his Tughlak Lane residence that even bouquets or flowers should not be accepted from party members.
"He thinks that one should not waste money buying bouquets or flowers. Gifts are strictly banned," said a party MP who did not want to be identified.
But most senior party leaders, including ministers, sent bouquets to the young Gandhi scion anyway. His friends, including the young MPs in the Congress, telephoned him or sent SMS messages to wish him.
Some Congress leaders expressed their loyalty by putting out advertisements in newspapers. One advertisement referred to him as "hope of the nation".
Tamil Nadu Congress veteran and Gandhi family loyalist Era Anparasu, who has been celebrating Rahul's birthday for a few years, said he had printed some posters and banners wishing the young Gandhi all the best.
"My son Arul Anbarasu (an MLA in Tamil Nadu) has distributed food items and dress materials to the poor people," Anbarasu told IANS from Chennai. The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee has included his birthday in the official list of functions to be celebrated by party units.
At the Indian Youth Congress headquarters here, party activists distributed notebooks to poor schoolchildren.
"We have distributed a set of five notebooks to 500 children. (Labour Minister) Oscar Fernandes distributed it for us," said Ashok Tanwar, the Youth Congress president.
"Following the traditions of the Youth Congress that used to organise wrestling competition on the occasion of (former prime minister) Rajivji's birthday, we have planned one on Rahulji's birthday too," he said.
Young Congress workers in others states, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, organised blood donation camps and distributed food and clothes to the poor.
A group of 100 Mahila Congress workers from Madhya Pradesh led by their president Sobha Oza, who came to congratulate Sonia Gandhi for nominating Pratibha Patil to the presidential post, sought an appointment with Rahul to greet him on his birthday. But they were told that he was out of town.