Rahul to hit tribal belt for three days from today

Nov 1, 2017, 08:15 IST

SURAT: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will hit the roads in Gujarat’s tribal belt on Wednesday on his third three-day visit to the state since September.

Gandhi will kick off the Navsarjan Yatra from Jambusar in Bharuch district and would cover nearly 34 assembly seats, majority of them in the tribal heartland where Congress has suffered severe electoral reverses. Of the 22, 11 are reserved for scheduled caste and schedule tribes and the BJP had swept 16 of them in 2012 elections. He will cover Bharuch, Surat and Tapi districts in three days.

“We are aiming to recapture at least 12 seats this time. Congress is attaching a great significance to this visit,” senior Congress leader Dr Tushar Chaudhary said. On November 3, Rahul will also cover all 12 assembly segments of Surat city.

Looking at its past performance and poor show in their previous strongholds of the tribal belt, Congress leadership has changed the strategy and decided to approach voters differently.

“During these three days, there would be four different chaupals (interaction sessions) with four different sets of people. Rahul Gandhi will interact with anganwadi and Asha workers and those farmers who are likely to lose land in various big projects like bullet train, Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and others,” he said.

“The basic idea is to interact with local voters who are totally disenchanted with ruling party and bring them back to Congress the fold,” another senior Congress leader said.

The Congress has organized a sammelan of land losers at Vagra, public meeting at Jambusar, interaction with the unemployed youth in the industrial belt of Ankleshwar and another public meeting at Jankhvav and Mandvi on the first day .

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/rahul-to-hit-tribal-belt-for-three-days-from-today/articleshow/61377221.cms