Dehradun: Sonia Gandhi is back on the campaign trail. The Congress president has picked election-bound Uttarakhand for her first public rally since her surgery in the US in August this year. Is the Congress bringing out its top political arsenal to counter the Anna Hazare effect?
Anna had last week given a thumbs-up to Uttarakhand and its BJP chief minister BC Khanduri for the anti-corruption Bill that the state has passed. Mr Hazare, while breaking his maun vrat in Delhi, said, "People like him (BC Khanduri) should be praised. We have to praise the good, and criticize the bad." The praise came much in the same breath as did some admonishment for the Congress-led UPA at the Centre for dragging its feet on the Lokpal Bill.
While Anna - who has promised not to single out the Congress as a target in his anti-corruption campaign - hastened to add that he did not "see Khanduri as someone who represents his party, the BJP...I see him as the Chief Minister of a state and praise him for the work he is doing for the state," his words are expected to give a fillip to the BJP's campaign in the state. Uttarakhand is the first state to pass a Lokayukta Act, one that the Gandhian activist has endorsed as being closest to the Jan Lokpal bill that Team Anna has drafted.
So political observers are keenly watching today's Sonia Gandhi rally to see if Mrs Gandhi will make any statement on the Lokpal issue or on Anna Hazare. She will kick off her party's campaign by laying the foundation stone for extending the rail network from Rishikesh to Karna-prayag - a gateway to the twin pilgrim centres of Badrinath and Kedarnath.
Anna had last week given a thumbs-up to Uttarakhand and its BJP chief minister BC Khanduri for the anti-corruption Bill that the state has passed. Mr Hazare, while breaking his maun vrat in Delhi, said, "People like him (BC Khanduri) should be praised. We have to praise the good, and criticize the bad." The praise came much in the same breath as did some admonishment for the Congress-led UPA at the Centre for dragging its feet on the Lokpal Bill.
While Anna - who has promised not to single out the Congress as a target in his anti-corruption campaign - hastened to add that he did not "see Khanduri as someone who represents his party, the BJP...I see him as the Chief Minister of a state and praise him for the work he is doing for the state," his words are expected to give a fillip to the BJP's campaign in the state. Uttarakhand is the first state to pass a Lokayukta Act, one that the Gandhian activist has endorsed as being closest to the Jan Lokpal bill that Team Anna has drafted.
So political observers are keenly watching today's Sonia Gandhi rally to see if Mrs Gandhi will make any statement on the Lokpal issue or on Anna Hazare. She will kick off her party's campaign by laying the foundation stone for extending the rail network from Rishikesh to Karna-prayag - a gateway to the twin pilgrim centres of Badrinath and Kedarnath.
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