Congress' major focus on how to sustain Hathras movement momentum

Hathras : The Congress has started a fight against Centre and the state government over the Hatras gangrape incident, that has outraged the nation, but the party is now focusing on how to sustain the momentum of the movement in coming days.

It all started with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi being forcefully stopped near UP border in Noida and the UP policemen manhandling them. The images of the incident, in which Rahul Gandhi was seen pushed down to the ground and Priyanka Gandhi was touched inappropriately, have gone viral on social media with Congress workers and a majority of people slamming the misbehave by cops.

"These images are disturbing and have agitated not only Congress leaders and workers but the entire country. How can a policeman misbehave with any woman? And this happened to somebody who has Z plus security cover," said Youth Congress president Srinivas BV.

Meanwhile, the incident is being compared with Indira Gandhi's visit to Belchi in Bihar in 1977. Congress' electoral fortunes were overturned after that visit of Indira Gandhi.

Indira Gandhi travelled by train, jeep and tractor and rode an elephant to reach Belchi village where 10 Dalits had been massacred. Three years later, the Congress stormed to power in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections.

But, the ruling BJP party has claimed Gandhi's desperate attempt to reach Hathras as 'political tourism'.

Congress has claimed that they will use the Hathras case as their weapon against BJP in upcoming UP and Bihar elections, but the bigger quest will be on maintaining it as the by-polls are scheduled in UP in the year 2022.