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| Politics
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| Sonia Gandhi in Gujarat: |
| Sonia Gandhi in Gujarat: Will she take on Narendra Modi?
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| INDIA
, 3-October-2012
5:11:11 AM |
| Sonia Gandhi has landed in Narendra Modi's Gujarat and will soon kick off the Congress' election campaign in the state with a rally in Rajkot.
Mrs Gandhi's visit comes amid much political heat generated by Mr Modi's dare that the Congress-led UPA government must detail expenditure on her foreign travel. It is also the first time Mrs Gandhi will address a public gathering after the UPA government set off on its "reforms-are-back" agenda in the face of much political opposition and she is expected to launch a strong defence of the government's policies.
Rajkot, in the Saurashtra region, is BJP territory, but the Congress hopes to exploit the fact that it is in this Patel stronghold that BJP rebel Keshubhai Patel has begun his rival political party. A Sonia Gandhi election rally is also of much interest as five years ago, while campaigning in Gujarat, she had called Mr Modi "a trader of death (Maut ka Saudagar)." That, many political analysts say, may have swung the elections in favour of Mr Modi, who, they say, used it to his political advantage. That time Mr Modi had raked up the issue of Mrs Gandhi's foreign origin. In the 2007 elections, he came strongly back to power winning 117 of the 182 seats in the Gujarat Assembly; the Congress won just 59 seats.
This time, just before Mrs Gandhi's scheduled visit, Mr Modi has accused the Manmohan Singh government of spending crores of public money on her foreign travel. All eyes are now on the Rajkot rally to see if Mrs Gandhi will at all retaliate. Elaborate security arrangements are in place for the Congress President's visit, with a team from the Special Protection Group conducting security checks at the places that the she is visiting. 1,000 policemen have been deployed at the Race Course Road rally venue. Before addressing the rally she visited a Ramakrishna ashram.
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