Rahul Gandhi to visit Guwahati on February 21 to boost party workers’ morale

GUWAHATI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi will visit Guwahati on February 21 to boost the morale of party workers and leaders of the northeastern region ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Gandhi’s visit comes after the Congress recently played a key role in contributing towards preventing the Centre from tabling the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Rajya Sabha — an issue which had kept the entire region on the edge for almost three years.
Several anti-bill groups of Assam, including All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) and KMSS, met Gandhi seeking support to block the bill and later praised him and Congress for sending the bill out of existence.
Gandhi is scheduled to address 23,000 booth committee presidents of the party and delegates. He will also meet the North East Congress Coordination Committee (NECC) core committee leaders and block leaders, said NECC coordinator Pradyut Bhuyan. According to state Congress, the failed bill in the Rajya Sabha was a ‘foiled attempt by communal forces to convert secular India into fundamentalist India.’
Leader of the opposition, Debabrata Saikia, said Congress honoured the sentiments of the people of Assam and the northeast as a whole and evolved such effective floor coordination with non-BJP parties that the Modi government was unable to muster the courage to table the bill in the Rajya Sabha on the last day of the Budget session of Parliament.
He added that after safeguarding the interests of Assam at the time of Partition, Congress has played the pivotal role in protecting the people of Assam and the northeast from a communal force. “Congress president Rahul Gandhi deserved praise for displaying political sagacity and evolving an unshakeable consensus with non-BJP parties to thwart the Modi government’s anti-Constitution and anti-northeast designs,” Saikia said.