Get in poll gear for better future: Sonia to UP Cong workers

Rae Bareli, June 18 (UNI) AICC president Sonia Gandhi today asked party workers to get in poll mode for the 2007 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh to ensure ''better governance.'' Addressing 7,000 odd booth level workers of her Lok Sabha constituency here, Ms Gandhi said, ''The way you worked hard for my election was an example for others to follow.'' She opined that the message of the dedicated work of party workers in Rae Bareli should be spread outside the constituency too.

She asked them to gear up for the assembly elections as it were due early next year.

The Congress chief said, Uttar pradesh needed a change to ensure that the law of land was better respected and governance did not lie in the hand of a ''selected few, who worked on their whims and fancies.'' Ms Gandhi, who is on a two-day tour of the constituency to thank electorate for her landslide win in the Lok Sabha bypolls, was addressing booth workers of the five assembly segments which form part of the larger Lok Sabha constituency, at Feroze Gandhi College here. However, media was kept out of the event.

Commenting on the complaints she had received from all quarters on poor power supply and bare irrigational facilities, she said both issues would be sorted out at the earliest.

Stressing the need to generate more employment oportunities, Ms Gandhi said a factory would be established in Rae Bareli to help generate more jobs. The AICC chief had promised greater employment opportunities during an address before the May bypoll.

She also thanked Congress workers for standing by the party in ''tough times''.

Later in the day, Ms Gandhi felicitated 450 workers of 45 booths, which registered a high voter turn out during the bypoll.

Earlier, she met delegations from the district at the ITI guest house. She would leave for the national capital this evening.

Her son and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi is accompanying her. Rahul was her campaign manager for the bypoll.

UNI NAB VS MA RN1927