Sonia visits constituency,focuses on Dalit areas

This was the first time Gandhi met the people of her constituency after the Lok Sabha election.

She asked them whether they were getting the benefits of central schemes like NREGA,Mid Day Meal,Indira Awas Yojna,Jannai Suraksha Yojna. As the villagers came out with their complaints,she directed district officers who travelled with her to look into the complaints. If the officers concerned were not present,she asked her representative to get in touch with them.

Around 10:30 am,she began with the Beriyan Tola village. The villagers there complained about the poor power supply,to which she said it was something the state government should look into.

The villagers also complained of the poor reach of Central Government schemes and the menace of nilgai which destroyed their crops.

Everyone was taken by surprise when a young Dalit woman,Vidya,took Gandhi’s hand led her to a heap of debris. She said it was her house which had crashed in last year’s rain,but she had not received any relief to reconstruct it and the family was living under a thatched roof supported by wooden poles and no walls. Gandhi assured her that she would do something about her problem.

Next,she went to the Sabji village where she stopped near the house of a Dalit woman,Nukhai. The villagers complained that for the last fortnight,the children had not been receiving the mid-day meal in the local school. Gandhi asked her representative Kishori Lal Sharma to get in touch with the District Magistrate and look into the matter.

One problem often cited by the villagers was non-payment or delayed payment of NREGS wages. At one place,Gandhi even asked her representative to call the engineer concerned about it.

The engineer reportedly replied that the payment had been pending for two to three months because the measurement of the work had not been done. He was asked to complete the measurement as soon as possible and release the money.

Through the day,Gandhi covered three of the assembly segments of her constituency. Sources said she would cover the remaining segments over the next two days.