Sonia dares Maya: I’m ready to go to jail

Unfazed by the Mayawati government’s moves to scuttle her visit to Rae Bareli, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today landed in her Lok Sabha constituency, calling it her “karmabhoomi” and declaring she was “ready to go to jail” for the sake of development.

“Rae Bareli and Amethi have been the karmabhoomi of Feroze Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. It is also Rahul and my karmabhoomi. Rae Bareli and Amethi are like my home. Can anyone prevent me from coming home? No one can,” she told reporters in Lalganj.

Taking a swipe at Chief Minister Mayawati, Gandhi said that like the rail coach factory in Rae Bareli, allotment of land for which was cancelled by the UP government, several other schemes were being blocked by the state. “There are over a dozen such development projects that the Central government has funded and plans to bring to the state. But in each, the state government has put some hindrance or the other,” she said.

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Chinese comrades invite Rahul to mark 20th year of his father's visit

Beijing may have summoned the Indian Ambassador at 2 am to protest against the Tibetans trying to scale their Embassy wall in New Delhi but all this was off the record today as a high-level delegation of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) came knocking on the Congress doors with a red carpet.

Signaling a readiness to look beyond its ideological brethren among the Left, the CPC came to the Congress with a proposal to hold a conference in Beijing to mark the 20th anniversary of the late Rajiv Gandhi's path-breaking visit to China in December 1988. The CPC also invited Rahul Gandhi to inaugurate the conference likely to be held towards the year-end.

The CPC proposed to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Congress Party to form an "institutional mechanism of collaboration" between the two. The Chinese delegation, led by Li Jinjun, Vice Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, proposed that Rahul should come to China to inaugurate the conference. These proposals were accepted by the Congress delegation led by senior party leader Devendra Dwivedi.

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