Thaindian News

Varanasi, July 22 (IANS) Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi may be over 40 years of age, but his party activists Friday insisted on barring anybody above 35 from entering the venue of a Youth Congress meet convened by him here.

Gandhi had called an open house session with Youth Congress activists at the Garwa Ghat Ashram on the banks of the Ganga river, where he concluded his two-day tour of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

However, entry to the venue was restricted only to those who carried their respective birth certificates or any other proof to establish that they were below 35 years of age. Around 3,000 youth attended the meet amid tight security.

While lambasting the Mayawati government on various counts, Gandhi called upon YC activists to pull up their socks and prepare themselves for the state assembly elections slated for 2012.

Although the meet was out of bounds for the media, local Congress spokesperson Dharmendra Singh told reporters here, “Rahul asked us to form a five-member team of Youth Congress workers for every booth in each of the 403 assembly constituencies across the state.”

Apart from lambasting Chief Minister Mayawati for alleged large-scale financial irregularities in implementation of MGNREGA and NRHM schemes, Gandhi also accused the state government of “forcibly acquiring agricultural land of innocent farmers and doling it out to the powerful and affluent lobby of builders”.

He expressed hope that the Youth Congress would spread out across the length and breadth of the state and its activists would actually get down to fulfilling the party’s mission of stamping out corruption from the state.