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Rahul wants action on jobs scheme

— Photo: PTI

Reaching out: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi interacts with a farmer while staging a dharna at Jhansi on Friday after he was stopped from meeting the Divisional Commissioner for discussing problems faced by farmers in the region.

LUCKNOW: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has demanded effective implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.

Mr. Gandhi, who concluded his four-day whistle-stop tour of the drought-hit region on Friday, met Jhansi Division Commissioner P.V. Jaganmohan in Jhansi before returning to New Delhi. Accompanied by a delegation of farmers, Mr. Gandhi apprised the Commissioner of the woeful state of the farmers in the region and said NREGP agencies were ignoring them.

When contacted, Mr. Jaganmohan told The Hindu that Mr. Gandhi mentioned two villages in Jhansi district. The Jhansi Division Commissioner, however, said the rural job scheme was not being implemented in the two places, as they were located in the extended urban areas of the district.

The villages are Ghisauli and Badora, from where Mr. Gandhi started his tour on Tuesday. Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh said here that around 300 people from Ghisauli and Badora villages accompanied Mr. Gandhi in his meeting with Mr. Jaganmohan.

Mr. Gandhi visited remote villages in Banda and Chitrakoot districts where he met Dalit families to get first hand information of the progress of the Central schemes, particularly the rural job programme. He also crossed over to Tikamgarh and Panna districts in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. The Congress Member of Parliament from Amethi spent a night in a tribal household in Rajapur village in Panna district.

In what is being seen in Congress circles as a rejoinder to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s recent remark that Mr. Gandhi ‘purified’ himself after meeting the Dalits, the Congress leader visited a Dalit household in Nahri village in Banda district on Thursday night. Reports said that Mr. Gandhi also attended a marriage ceremony in the village. He also reportedly visited a hostel for Dalit students in Banda.

Mr. Gandhi’s visit to the Bundelkhand villages was kept under wraps with the media not allowed to cover the event. Even the local Congressmen were in the dark about his itinerary.

Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Rita Bahuguna Joshi accompanied Mr. Gandhi.

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