By IANS,
New Delhi : Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is known to have helped young faces from Punjab get party nominations for the Lok Sabha polls. And now he will go the whole hog by campaigning for them.
The 38-year-old Congress general secretary will be in Punjab Tuesday to address a rally at the Sikh religious town of Talwandi Sabo near Bathinda. Here, Raninder Singh, the son of former chief minister Amarinder Singh, is the party candidate.
Raninder Singh is pitched in a high-stake political battle in Bathinda constituency against Akali Dal president and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal’s wife, Harsimrat Kaur.
Three other young Congress candidates – Ravneet Singh Bittu (Anandpur Sahib), Sukhwinder Singh Danny (Faridkot) and Vijay Inder Singla (Sangrur) – will also need back-up from Rahul Gandhi in subsequent days.
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Desperately seeking – posters, banners
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress in Madhya Pradesh are still waiting for posters and banners to arrive from New Delhi. Never mind that the Lok Sabha polls will kick off in the state April 22.
“The material will soon reach here from the party’s central office and it will be promptly dispatched to all the 29 parliamentary constituencies in the state,” said Govind Maloo, the BJP’s state media in-charge.
The scene is no different in the Congress camp. A party leader said they would get the poll material in the next two days.
Congress state general secretary Rajiv Singh tried to put up a brave face: “Times have changed and so has the method of canvassing. While election material like posters and banners are important, they have not remained the only mode of appealing for votes.”
As for the power of the web, he said: “The power crisis and low internet speed are proving a major hurdle”.
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No car convoy, no frills, he is CM’s son
Riding a good old Tata Sumo vehicle and without a convoy of cars for company, not many can tell at first glance that an MP, that too the Delhi chief minister’s son, is sitting inside.
While politicians these days prefer zooming around in luxury cars, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s son and MP from east Delhi Sandeep Dikshit, who is seeking re-election from the same constituency, seems to be a no-frills man.
With no accompanying vehicles, the car has Dikshit sitting in the front, without being sandwiched between security men and secretaries.
The white Tata Sumo simply flaunts a board, “Sansad – Poorvi Delhi (MP-East Delhi)”.
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Here, there, Mamata Banerjee everywhere
It was an unusual sight. Residents of South Kolkata were startled to find hundreds of Mamata Banerjees walking in a procession, canvassing for votes for the Trinamool Congress chief.
Only on closer scrutiny did they realise that these were actually Trinamool Congress activists wearing ‘Mamata’ paper masks. She is a candidate from the South Kolkata constituency.
Banerjee has been travelling across the length and breadth of West Bengal wooing the electorate and lecturing them in meeting after meeting on the “misrule” of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Front government in the state.