Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi douse flaming flak with relief work

AMETHI: The dust has yet to settle in Amethi after the recently concluded elections. Days after a major fire broke out at Mauja Baraulia in Amethi and left 65 houses gutted, the BJP kicked off a war of words on twitter, accusing Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi of failing to protect people of his constituency and for being an MP in absentia.
On Wednesday, without a word in reaction, Rahul and his sister Priyanka quietly spent an hour offering the healing touch, meeting victims of the fire, distributing relief material and assuring them the families will be given an Indira Awas each, in place of the homes they have lost.

This was the first time the brother-sister duo visited Amethi after the near-scare Rahul received at the hands of BJP vice president Smriti Irani in the recently concluded general elections. His hold over the Gandhi bastion, which Rahul has routinely won with a margin of more than 3 lakh votes, slipped dramatically this time. Rahul won, but only just; with a margin of 1.07 lakh votes.

On Wednesday, with only three hours set aside for Amethi, Rahul and Priyanka landed at Fursatganj airport around 1pm and spent nearly an hour visiting victims and their families at Mauja Baraulia. With the recent electioneering in Amethi, relief work was already on full swing ahead of Rahul's arrival; the local Samajwadi Party MLA and Congress party had set up parallel camps distributing food grains, utensils and clothes as relief material.

Oddly enough, the fire, which broke out on Sunday afternoon, has still not been doused entirely. Smoke was still emerging from some run down parts of the cluster of homes where residents had stored their food grains and husk. Villagers told TOI that fire tenders had been called in, but had been unable to enter inside the narrow by lanes and douse the fire in every part of the village.

There has been constant presence of relief workers in the village since Sunday, soon after the accident occurred. Nearly six persons sustained burns and were rushed to the Sanjay Gandhi hospital in Munshiganj for treatment, but no one, including the BJP workers who attacked the Congress camp, noted that the embers were still smoldering inside the village.

On Tuesday, Smriti Irani had tweeted that she had already been in conversation with the district magistrate, seeking compensation for the 66 families affected by the fire. She also said her NGO-without naming it-would send additional relief material to victims.

After the visit to the village, Rahul and Priyanka also spent some time at the district Congress committee office in Gauriganj where they both addressed a gathering of party workers. Sources told TOI Priyanka and Rahul thanked workers for the "struggle" they had faced in contesting the elections and also said that the Congress would continue its fight by remaining connected with the people.

Priyanka, party insiders said, also promised to return to discuss and review the party's future strategies at a date decided upon by the party workers in Amethi. The date of her next visit, though, has not been fixed yet.