DNA

LUCKNOW, Mar 16: The Congress’ uncrowned prince Rahul Gandhi may seem to be a novice in politics. But he is definitely giving UP CM Mayawati a tough time.

Sometime ago, it was his visit to the famine-hit Bundelkhand region which had nettled the Dalit icon. In the latest episode, on Saturday, he visited Ameenabad village in Etawah district where five members of a Dalit family had been killed by rivals (also Dalits) in a land dispute on Thursday.

Rahul literally sent Mayawati scampering to the remote Etawah village on Friday evening. It was an impromptu visit planned in a hurry after it became known that Rahul would be reaching there on Saturday morning.

While Mayawati’s visit had all the trappings of a VVIP event, with ex-gratia payments being announced and lofty promises being made before the media to root out crime from the state, Rahul offered silent condolences to the desolate family. He also did not speak at all with mediapersons who had gathered there.

On Friday afternoon, the UP Congress office was abuzz with the news that Rahul Gandhi would be visiting the grief-stricken family, which includes four young girls. The development was striking as neither the Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav, who hails from Etawah, nor the self-proclaimed messiah of Dalits Mayawati had bothered to visit the village.

Mayawati was on her way to Varanasi to receive PM Manmohan Singh there when she got to know of the development. She immediately ordered for arrangements to be made for her visit to the Etawah village the same evening, lest the Congress extract political mileage from the Rahul visit.

“There should be no politics in a tragedy like this,” she said while addressing a gathering at the Ammenabad village. She stayed with the victim’s family for about half an hour and promised that the government would take care of all expenses related to the  education and marriage of the four orphaned girls.

A couple of months ago, Rahul had toured Bundelkhand and commented about the poor relief work by the state government in the drought-hit region. Political observers feel Rahul could prove the proverbial thorn in the flesh for Mayawati.