Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has left for Bangkok, news agency IANS reported. Quoting media reports, it said that Rahul left for Bangkok on a Vistara flight on Saturday.
Rahul’s visit to Bangkok has raised many eyebrows as it comes just ahead of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana where the Congress is facing a stiff challenge from the ruling BJP. Both Maharashtra and Haryana will go to polls simultaneously on October 21. Counting will be done on October 24.
In Haryana, the party is divided into various factions and the leadership has clearly failed to contain dissidence within its ranks. Rahul’s close aide and former Haryana state unit chief Ashok Tanwar resigned from the party on Saturday over alleged irregularities in ticket distribution. Tanwar has alleged that those groomed by Rahul Gandhi are being sidelined in the party. Tanwar was miffed with the Congress ever since he was replaced as Haryana Congress chief by Kumari Selja early last month.
Meanwhile, the Congress party has said that Rahul Gandhi will participate in assembly elections when he will be required. Party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that personal and public life of an individual should not be mixed.
“The personal should not be mixed with the public life of an individual. We need to entitle everybody an eternal sense of liberty and privacy. After all, this is the basic and outlining principle of a progressive and liberal democracy,” he tweeted and coupled it with #RahulGandhi #Bangkok.
The reason behind Rahul’s visit to Bangkok is not known to the media. However, this is not the first time when Rahul has gone out of India at the time of elections. Earlier in 2015, Rahul had visited Bangkok ahead of the elections in a few states.
Bangkok also started trending on Twitter after reports emerged that Rahul Gandhi is visiting the Thailand capital. This also provided ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Party to attack the Congress party.
“Just ahead of Maharashtra & Haryana elections, Rahul Gandhi has gone off to Bangkok today at 0825 hrs by Vistara UK 121 from Delhi,” Delhi BJP spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga said in one of his tweets on Rahul’s visit. “Bangkok is now trending in India.”
Amit Malviya, In-charge of BJP’s national Information & Technology, too took a jibe as he retweeted a tweet on Rahul’s visit.
