Sonia Gandhi falls ill, cuts short Varanasi roadshow

Thousands of Congress supporters and workers took part in the roadshow from the Circuit House to Englishiya Line, a distance of about eight kilometres.

The march began with Gandhi garlanding the statue of B R Ambedkar at the Circuit House and marchers crisscrossed lanes and bylanes of the temple town. Gandhi, who was initially travelling in a car and later moved to a vehicle with an open sunroof, waved at the crowd which cheered and raised slogans against the Modi government. She came out of her vehicle several times to accept the greetings of the cheering supporters, including groups of Muslim women. As the road show passed through several localities, rose petals were showered on Gandhi and her cavalcade from adjoining buildings. Dozens of mini trucks prominently displayed posters with ‘27 Saal, UP Behaal’ (27 years of UP’s distress) written on them. Placards carried by hundreds of workers also had the same slogan written on them.

Besides the party’s chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit, AICC General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad, state party chief Raj Babbar and senior leaders Pramod Tiwari and Sanjay Singh accompanied Gandhi. Earlier, Gandhi flew in here for a day-long programme in Modi’s constituency and was led by hundreds of bikers, waving party flags from the airport to the heart of the city. Sonia, however, could not complete her itinerary in the city as she ran a high temperature. She cancelled her planned visit to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in the evening to offer prayers.

Congress has been out of power for 27 years in Uttar Pradesh and is projecting that the state has gone from bad to worse in these years through a campaign, called ‘27 Saal, UP Behaal’.