NEW DELHI: A large crowd thronged the Ramila Maidan on Sunday afternoon, when Congress president Rahul Gandhi held his first public rally since assuming the top party post.
The crowd looked like a sea of white with scores of people turning up to hear the Congress president speak.
Adequate arrangements were made for people to sit, drinking water, and security were made for the Jan Aakrosh Rally.
In a first, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) President Ajay Maken had appealed Congress workers to be at he ground by 9:30 am.
In fact, this was the first time that the Delhi unit issued more than 40,000 identity cards with bar codes to the party workers so that number of workers who participated in the Jan Akrosh rally can be tracked.
The Congress workers and leaders from various states also arrived in the capital for the rally, where Mr Gandhi took the stage, launching the party’s campaign for the 2019 general elections.
Party leaders and workers from across India were in attendance.
A song from the movie Gulal, ‘Arambha hai prachand (the beginning is intense), was played on a big screen when a footage of the Congress president meeting people, travelling the country, and addressing crowds, was played.
Even though the key words of the party’s rally were ‘corruption, unemployment, misgovernance, atrocities against Dalits’, , many workers were also carrying ‘stop rape’ posters.
On Saturday, Delhi unit president Mr Maken had said that the rally will see proper arrangements for parking of vehicles coming from Delhi and outstation areas and various committees have been formed.
Meanwhile, some reports suggested that a television journalist from Jammu and Kashmir news channel was beaten up for allegedly reporting that people had not turned up in large numbers for the rally.
Spokesperson of the BJP Delhi Praveen Shankar Kapoor alleged that a journalist of J&K News 24x7 channel Tabish Kalam was attacked by Congress workers at the rally as he was “reporting about rally not attracting much crowd and focussed the camera on empty chairs all around”.
“I strongly condemn this attack on the journalist and believe that attack again shows the true anti media colours of the Congress,” he said.
“The party leadership should immediately apologise to the journalist,” he added.
