Cong to hold 10 seminars to mark Indira’s birth centenary celebrations
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) will hold 10 seminars focusing on the life and work of former Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi to mark the end of year long birth centenary celebrations that began in 2016.
“We propose to hold 10 seminars with the first in Lucknow on September 13 and the last in Allahabad on November 17,” said UPCC president Raj Babbar in Lucknow on Monday.
Seminars have also been proposed in Jhansi/Hamirpur (September 18), Varanasi (September 25), Meerut (October 4), Bareilly (October 11), Aligarh (October 15), Gorakhpur (October 25), Agra (November 11) and Rae Bareli (November 4).
Party leaders hope that a member of Gandhi family may attend the seminar in Rae Bareli that was the Lok Sabha seat of late Indira Gandhi.
Professor Aditya Mukerjee of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), historian Mridula Mukherjee and other leaders who worked closely with the former PM will be among the invitees at the first seminar to be organised at Indira Gandhi Pratisthan (IGP) in Lucknow. “We hope Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will attend the seminar in Allahabad,” said Babbar.
UP Congress seminars will be in addition to programmes that All India Congress Committee is expected to hold in New Delhi to mark her birth anniversary on November 19.
Meanwhile, Babbar targeted the saffron brigade for ‘misleading’ people in the name of culture and hinted how these seminars may bring into focus political debate on attempts of ‘so called’ rashtra bhakts (nationalists) to spread hatred and undermine contribution of the desh bhakts (patriots).