Priyanka cancels visit to UP for Kisan Jan Jagran Abhiyan

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has cancelled her visit to Basti on February 23 for 'Kisan Jan Jagran Abhiyan' (Farmers Awareness Campaign) as she would be accompanying her mother and party president Sonia Gandhi for her treatment abroad.

Party State president Ajay Kumar 'Lallu' confirmed here on Thursday about the cancellation of Ms Vadra's rally but said that new dates will be announced soon.

He started 40-days long 'Kisan Jan Jagran Abhiyan' here on February 6 last to raise the farmers problems and put it before the government for its redressal. He claimed that the entire campaign has been divided into five phases.

In the first phase, 25,000 Congress workers would visit three blocks every day, meeting 300 families per block, thus till the end of the phase, they will contact 2.72 crore people of the state including 55 lakh families of the farmers

He said that in the second phase, they will meet the MLAs and MPs and would hand over them the memorandum of demands made by the farmers.

In the third phase, the Congress workers along with farmers and public will ghearo the tehsil offices on 'Thesil Diwas' to put forward those demands. Similarly, in the fourth phase, they will ghearo all the district head-quarters and in the last phase, the Party would ghearo the Vidhan Sabha.

Mr Lallu said that during the entire campaign, the Party would hold 12,000 corner meetings, 900 press conferences, and more then 800 demonstrations.

The Party would demand electricity bill of farmers to be reduced to half, farmers' loan waiver, double profit and also double minimum support price as promised during election campaign in 2014, MSP of Rs 400 per quintal for cane, clear all the dues of the cane growers, among others.