Top Congress leaders to address Jaipur rally to protest unrelenting price rise due to Modi govt’s policies

Over a lakh people are expected to attend the ‘Mehangai Hatao’ mega rally of the Congress being held on Sunday in Jaipur to protest against the rising prices of fuel and foodgrains. The mega rally would be addressed by senior Congress leaders including party president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

The rally was originally scheduled to be held in Delhi but was shifted to Jaipur because Delhi Police refused to grant permission to hold it there.

AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal, who is also a Rajya Sabha member from Rajasthan, AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan Ajay Maken, chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and PCC president Govind Singh Dotasara were present at Vidyadhar Nagar to supervise the preparation for the rally. Former MP chief minister Digvijaya Singh and former Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde also arrived to coordinate the arrangements.

The party has instructed the party cadre participating in the rally to observe Covid protocols including wearing masks.

The rally is being organised even as the Ashok Gehlot government is nearing the completion of three years of rule in the state.

Addressing a media conference, Maken and Surjewala said that the rally had been organised to raise people’s voices against inflation and the rise in the price of fuel, cooking gas and foodgrains. Surjewala listed the current prices of fuel and foodstuff in various states and said that the Narendra Modi government, by not reducing the excise duty on petrol and diesel, has been earning huge revenues even while people were reeling under the high price rise.

The Congress party will continue its agitation against the rising prices under the Jan Jagran Abhiyan. A nine-member committee set up with Digvijaya Singh as the chairman will chalk out a new programme of agitation that would continue till January next year.

Despite the ongoing marriage season, a large number of people from the 33 districts of Rajasthan and also from neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are likely to attend the rally.

The rally is being dubbed as the launch of the Congress’ poll campaign as elections in five states are due by early next year.

The party is likely to chalk out its various agitation programmes till the Parliament’s budget session and this would be spread in two sessions. The party will focus on the issue of unemployment and question the various promises made by the Modi government which it failed to fulfil.

The party, through a separate programme, would also oppose the NDA government’s move of selling off national assets in the name of privatisation. Under this programme, the party will also highlight issues with the government’s ‘national monetisation pipeline’.