Problems for Rahul Gandhi are increasing day by day. Yesterday, he faced a massive uproar by the local farmers in his constituency of Amethi. The Farmers staged protests and raised slogans in Gauriganj town in the Amethi district.
The farmers want the land that was given to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation back. According to sources , the Jain brothers had taken over 65.57 acres of land in the industrial area of Kausar to run a company in the 1980s but, due to its failure, the land was auctioned off in 2014. According to the records, UPSIDC had leased 65.57 acres of land to the company in 1986 but when the company was closed down, the Debts Recovery Tribunal had it auctioned for Rs. 20.1 crores to recover the loan in 2014.
The land purchased in the auction was paid for by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust for stamp duty worth Rs. 1,50,000. However, later the land auction process was termed invalid by the UPSIDC after which a Gauriganj SDM Court ordered the return of the land belonging to the Samrat Cycle Factory to UPSIDC.
Since then the land is with UPSIDC on paper but is still occupied by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust. Farmers are cursing Rahul Gandhi for his negligence towards Amethi. Rahul Gandhi who visited Amethi yesterday for campaigning for the general elections witnessed the wrath of the protesters .
According to ANI, Sanjay Singh ,one of the protesters, urged Rahul Gandhi to go back. He further said,”We are very upset with Rahul Gandhi. He should go back to Italy. He does not deserve to be here. Rahul has grabbed our land. It is disheartening that even after decades of getting national and international attention as the “VIP constituency” of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, this town of Uttar Pradesh, is awaiting its redemption. The constituency struggles to meet even the basic requirement of their residents such as electricity and education, lagging behind some of the poorest districts in the country. Amethi, too, has remained with the Congress constantly with the exception of 1998, when Sanjay Singh won from there on a BJP ticket. Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, has been representing the constituency in Parliament since 2004. Official statistics show that Amethi will fall below even Jhansi and Etawah and will be regarded as one of the poorest regions in the state, in the terms of literacy rates and social development indices. In Amethi, there is less than 40 percent attendance rates in schools due to the lack of infrastructure facilities.
This is not the first time that people are staging protests against Rahul. Amethi saw a similar protest by its female residents who demanded power in Utelwa village a few years ago, but now anger has spilled out in the open. The Congress party is aware that Rahul Gandhi will probably not be able to retain his seat this time if he were to contest from Amethi. That is why they are looking for an alternative. The talk of Rahul Gandhi contesting from a seat other than Amethi is also the current issue discussed in the political boulevard.
