Congress to undertake 'padyatras' in UP

Lucknow: Buoyed by the "success" of Rahul Gandhi's padyatra in Saharanpur this week, UP Congress today said it will organise similar programmes in major cities of the state in December to celebrate party president Sonia Gandhi's birthday.

"The padyatras will be taken out in major cities of the state from December 9 to December 31 to highlight various problems faced by common people", chairman of communications department of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Satyadev Tripathi said.

The padyatras will be taken out at major cities like Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Meerut, Agra, Bareilly, among others.

The party will highlight problems like inflation, communal tension, law and order, centre's failure to provide compensation to drought-hit farmers and anomalies in various recruitment drives in the state, Tripathi said.

Senior Congress leaders including AICC General Secretary Madhusudan Mistry, party MPs and UPCC president Nirmal Khatri along with others will participate in these padyatras, he said.

Earlier on November 23, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had taken out a padyatra in Saharanpur, which the party claimed remained "successful" in highlighting the plight of farmers in region.