Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge (Image: PTI file)
Kharge’s meeting will be held in the Bannu School ground in the Race Course area
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will arrive here on Sunday to address a public meeting and launch the party’s campaign in the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. ”He is going all over the country. We are grateful that he has chosen Uttarakhand to give his call for a change,” senior party leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat said.
”Justice is what Rahul Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra is all about. The party president’s programme is a part of it,” he said. ”All sections of society are asking for justice, be it women, unemployed youths or farmers.” Kharge’s meeting will be held in the Bannu School ground in the Race Course area. The party had sought the district administration’s permission to hold the public meeting on the Parade ground but it was not allowed as the venue has been renovated as part of the Dehradun Smart City project and no major public programmes are being held to protect it. The Congress alleged that it was the BJP government’s conspiracy to sabotage the party’s programmes throughout the country as ”was evident in the manner Rahul Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra was disrupted in Assam”.
Congress workers also staged a dharna outside the state police headquarters here in protest against the administration declining to allow Kharge’s helicopter to land at the GTC helipad here on Sunday. Led by PCC president Karan Mahara and Leader of Opposition Yashpal Arya, the workers sat outside the state police chief’s office in protest. On repeated request by the officials including Dehradun SSP Ajai Singh, they shifted outside the gates of the state police headquarters but continued their dharna. They ended the dharna after the intervention of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and the administration consenting to the helicopter to land at the Bannu School ground where Kharge’s meeting is to be held. There are five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand, all currently held by the the ruling BJP.
