By IANS,
Lucknow: With an eye to the 2012 state assembly elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi are set to energise the party in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, after being out of power for more than two decades.
As a part of their pre-election exercise, the two leaders are arriving in Varanasi Wednesday to join a party convention, which would culminate in a public rally the following day.
According state Congress spokesman Subodh Srivastava, the AICC general secretary would arrive in Varanasi Wednesday morning and preside over a day-long meet of the state Congress.
His mother Sonia Gandhi will join him the following day when they will jointly address a public rally at the sprawling Beia Bagh grounds in the heart of Varanasi Thursday afternoon.
The two-day activity is seen as the first major exercise to get the Congress party into gear for the state election due barely 11 months from now.
State Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi is stated to have already been camping in Varanasi to give final touches to the preparations for the meet.