Jaitley to spend his MP funds on Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli

LUCKNOW: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh, has decided to invest his annual Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme funds worth ~5 crore in Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituency of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

The Union minister is likely to visit Rae Bareli after Diwali in November, and has already tasked his local representative and Rae Bareli in-charge Hero Bajpai with taking suggestions from locals on the areas that require urgent attention.

“We have sought suggestions from people to flag areas that require attention.

We are overwhelmed by responses. Of the ~5 crore fund allotted to Rajya Sabha MPs annually, ~2.5 crore has already been released...this is a VIP constituency in name and hence despite not having our MP here we have decided to take good care of this constituency in much the same way as we are doing at Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi,” Bajpai told HT.

Jaitley, sources said, is also likely to clear some big ticket projects for the constituency.

“We don’t see everything from the narrow prism of politics. But yes, we definitely would like to tell the residents of the so-called VIP constituencies that they didn’t gain by electing leaders who ran the country for so many years,” Bajpai said.

In July, Jaitley’s ministry had also cleared a proposal by Rae Bareli’s Indian Telephone Industry on increasing retirement age.