BAREILLY: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday asked her partymen to launch a `jail bharo' agitation against the "corrupt" Mulayam Singh Yadav regime.

The time had come to change the destiny of Uttar Pradesh, he told a "Nav Nirman" (reconstruction) rally here. The present regime was synonymous with corruption, anarchy and lawlessness, she said.

Last month in Kanpur, Ms. Gandhi exhorted the Congressmen to launch a "do or die" agitation. Now, she counselled them to shed despondency and move ahead to rewrite the destiny of the State.

Politics of greed

In the last two years the United Progressive Alliance Government had given crores of rupees to Uttar Pradesh for implementation of the Central schemes, but the money was not used for these projects. The politics of greed held sway in the State with the money being pocketed by a select few, Ms. Gandhi said.

Unemployment and power crisis stared the people in the face, yet the State Government ignored their plight.

Ms Gandhi's Bareilly programme — second of the eight "Nav Nirman" rallies planned in eight sectors before next year's Assembly polls in the State — had added significance for the Congress' electoral fortunes in the densely populated Rohilkhand region.

Rohilkhand has the largest concentration of Muslim population in Uttar Pradesh. The Muslim vote is decisive in 50 Assembly and 10 Lok Sabha constituencies in the Moradabad and Bareilly divisions, which constitute the Rohilkhand region.

However, in the 50 Assembly constituencies the Congress has only one MLA — Virendra Pratap Singh "Munna" from Tilhar in neighbouring Shahjahanpur district. Jitin Prasad is the sole Congress MP from Shahjahanpur out of the 10 Lok Sabha seats.

The fact that Muslim support is crucial in the region did not escape Ms. Gandhi's attention. She invoked the names of Hafiz Rahmat Khan (central player in the Anglo-Rohilla War in the 18th century); Nawab Khan Bahadur Khan, who played a leading role in the First War of Independence in 1857; Maulana Abdul Rauf, Subedar Khan, Fazlur Rehman and Ahmed Raza Khan, founder of the Barelvi sect of Sunni Muslims.

15-point programme

She said the UPA Government was concerned about the welfare of the minorities, for whom it initiated a 15-point programme.

Ms. Gandhi said though everyone was against terrorism and terror acts, only one community should not be targeted.

On Monday, the Chief Minister, in an election-oriented speech in Rampur, 68 km from Bareilly, eulogised the contribution of the Ali brothers — Maulana Mohd Ali Jauhar and Shaukat Ali — in the freedom struggle.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail