Cong wants close watch on Bundelkhand package:HT

The Congress has stepped up efforts to ensure that the implementation of Rs 7,266 crore package for Bundelkhand is monitored, a move that can bring the party into deeper conflict with the BJP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The package was due to the initiative of party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi. Bundelkhand straddles both BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Uttar Pradesh(UP), and is a stronghold of UP Chief Minister Mayawati's BSP.



A group of Madhya Pradesh legislators of the Congress met Gandhi on Tuesday to demand a monitoring of the package to obviate misuse of central funds. This had its impact on UP also.



"The Mayawati government wants to spend the development funds on routine schemes such as maintaining canals and digging ponds and wells. We will meet Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon to ensure proper implementation of the package," said Congress MLA Vivek Singh.



Rahul Gandhi had led a delegation of party leaders to Manmohan Singh to demand the package and the setting up of the Bundelkhand Development Council.



"Uttar Pradesh did not get the power project that National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had proposed to set up in Bargarh. The corporation has shifted the project to Chhatarpur in MP now," said Singh.



The Congress is planning to hold a rally in Banda (219 km from Lucknow) to target the UP government. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi are likely to address the rally to focus on the package.



"We have decided to hold the rally at Banda because of its strategic location. Four ministers in the Mayawati government – Naseemuddin Siddiqui, Babu Singh Kushwaha, Daddu Prasad and Badshah Singh – are from Banda. About 23 BSP leaders from the region have been given minister of state rank," Singh said.


This will be the first major programme of the Congress in the BSP's bastion after the one in Ambedkar Nagar, where Rahul had launched his party's 10 yatras on April 14.


"This time we will focus on the region's backwardness and the corruption in the Mayawati government," said Singh.