Over 300 Dalit families had VIP guests on the occasion of the 140th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation.
Asked by the party high command to follow in the footsteps of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, they rushed to their chosen Dalit villages after attending and addressing functions in their respective district headquarters on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.
Rahul, in recent times, has visited many villages in the state and spent nights with the Dalits, also the caste of Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati, in the hope of cornering her core vote bank.
The Congressmen have also been asked to share dinner with the Dalits and sleep in the villages in the same condition in which these poor people sleep.
The charisma and the element villagers, which has often been displayed by Rahul, were missing in the state- level leaders, though.
But trying hard to imitate him, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, soon after reaching Hardiya village in Allahabad, talked to the people about their day- to- day problems.
The villagers, however, couldn't recognise her outright until told by her supporters that she was the daughter of the late Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, a popular chief minister of UP. Congress leader Pramod Tiwari visited Bandhwa Arrau village under Rampur assembly constituency in Pratapgarh, Union minister of state for petroleum Jitin Prasada Deolariya visited Lakhimpur Kheri and Union minister of state for coal visited Shri Prakash Jaiswal Dwarikapuri Hata.
