Rahul sleeps in a dalit house

He slept on a cot and  used a villager’s quilt to fight the chill

AMETHI: After addressing a late night meeting at village Pure Jawahar here early Sunday, a famished AICC general secretary and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi accepted the invitation of local dalit women to share a meal with them.

What’s more, he took over a thatched hut in the village to spend the chilly night on a bamboo ‘khat’.

Gandhi was addressing a meeting at the predominantly dalit village. As the meeting got over around 2.30am, he accepted the invitation of a village woman, Sunita, to share a meal with them.

Perhaps tired, he willingly accepted the suggestion of spending the night there. The young MP soon took over a thatched hut, much to the chargin of his SPG guards. ‘’He slept on a bamboo cot and used a villagers’ blanket to fight the chill,’’ said a Congress leader.

The MP left for the Munshiganj guest house around 6am. The AICC general secretary arrived here on Saturday on a three-day visit during which he is expected to take stock of several schemes and hold meetings in his constituency.

He will take stock of the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in Uttar Pradesh and particularly in his constituency and also look into whether the scheme had benefited the rural masses, a Congress leader here said.

District panchayat representatives and Congressmen registered their complaint regarding discrepancies and corruption in implementation of NREGS and “non-effective implementation” of Central schemes with Gandhi and sought his intervention.

During the meeting, Gandhi told partymen that while youths were being given responsibility in the party, old partymen would also be given due respect.