Rahul to visit Azamgarh to interact with students

PTI

New Delhi: Even as a controversy erupted over senior Congress leader, Mr Digvijay Singh's trip to Azamgarh, Mr Rahul Gandhi, will pay a visit there apparently to send positive signals among the minorities in the Uttar Pradesh town which came under a cloud after the Delhi serial blasts.

The young AICC General Secretary will hold interactions with college students in Azamgarh, Mr Singh told reporters here.

Singh today led a delegation of state Congress leaders to the party chief, Ms Sonia Gandhi, and gave her a report on his visit to Azamgarh where he had raised doubts over the Batla house encounter of September 19, 2008, sparking a controversy.

The AICC General Secretary in-charge of UP said that Ms Gandhi has assured the delegation that she will request the Central government to take a decision soon on their demand for setting up of a special court to hear all such terror-related cases.

Recalling the contribution of Azamgarh in Indian freedom struggle and in particular the glorious history of Shibli National College of the town, Mr Singh said," Rahulji will go there and interact with students."

He said the college which Rahul is proposed to visit is 124 years old and Mahatma Gandhi, Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru were associated with it. He said the delegation also requested Sonia Gandhi to visit the college.

Rahul's proposed visit appears to be a move to send positive signals among the Muslim minorities there, who have shown signs of returning to Congress fold since the last Lok Sabha election. Congress has plans to go alone in the 2012 assembly elections in the state.

Most of the Indian Mujaheedin terrorists arrested for 2008 Delhi blasts were from Azamgarh and the residents there had been complaining of stereo-typing.