Faisal Fareed
Daijiworld Media Network - Lucknow

Lucknow, Nov 14: Amidst sporadic protests by Samajwadi Party (SP) activists, the yuvraj of Congress, Rahul Gandhi on Monday November 14 lamented the 'mafiaraj' and corruption in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul addressed the public meeting at railway ground at Trivenipuram in Jhunsi in Phoolpur parliamentary constituency.

Before starting his speech Rahul garlanded the statues of his grand father, the late Jawaharlal Nehru who was the first MP from Phoolpur. BSP regime was Rahul's target as he lashed out at Mayawati for the mafia raj in the state. "India is moving forward while UP is going backward due to this," he said.

Rahul also lamented that owing to the poor scenario the youths of UP have to go to other states for jobs. He also stated that rising corruption in government has forced even the harassed people to pay bribe for lodging FIRs.

Raising the issue of farmers, Rahul stated that farmers' land are grabbed by the Mayawati government and they are even branded as Maoist and silenced at gun point. "The BSP government of the state has even siphoned away funds sanctioned by the centre. The CM does not have time to visit the backward Bundelkhand region. Large scale corruption leads to misutilisation of funds and people are not getting benefits," he said.

"We are planning to bring Food Security Bill but are apprehensive that it will also meet the same fate as other central schemes and the benefits will be eaten up by the corrupt workers of BSP," he said.

The meeting was significant as Rahul for the first time spoke for nearly 35 minutes and formally launched the election campaign for the party in the state which is going to polls in early 2012.

Before the meeting as Rahul's chopper arrived, a group of SP workers sneaked into security cordon and showed black flags shouting slogans 'Rahul Go Back'. Before police could react, union minister Jitin Prasad and Congress leader Pramod Tiwari thrashed them.

One the other hand, reacting to Rahul's outburst, BSP supremo termed it as a political drama. "Rahul has called the people of UP as beggars who go to other place for jobs. The people of the state are sincere and have dignity. His allegations are baseless and he seems to be worried about the shrinking base of his party," read the press statement issued by BSP.