The Newshour Debate: Rahul Gandhi Opts Out (29th August 2014)

Описание: Digvijay Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Janardhan Dwivedi are among the senior Congress leaders who will lead the party's campaign for the September 13 bypolls to 11 Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh. The treasurer of All India Congress Committee, Motilal Vora, released the list of party's star campaigners. The other prominent faces are AICC secretary and incharge of UP affairs Madhusudan Mistry, senior leaders Mohsina Kidwai, Salman Khurshid, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Beni Prasad Verma, Motilal Vora, party spokesman Virendra Madan said. Pramod Tiwari, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, UPCC president Nirmal Khatri, leader of the party in UP Assembly Pradeep Mathur, senior leaders Sanjay Singh, Avinash Pandey, RPN Singh, Jitin Prasad, Rajiv Shukla, Raj Babbar, Pradeep Jain Aditya, Sachin Pilot, Begum Noor Bano, Nagma, Naseeb Singh are among the leaders who will tour the bypoll bound areas and address gatherings, he said. The campaign programme will be announced soon, Madan said. Congress is buoyed after its alliance with RJD and JDU clinched six out of the 10 Assembly seats in the Bihar by-election held on August 21. Rahul Gandhi's name has been dropped from the list of star campaigners for the by-polls in Uttar Pradesh. AICC releases 35 campaigners for the UP bypoll in which Rahul Gandhi's name is not in the list. Sources in the Congress party tell TIMES NOW that central leaders don't campaign in the bypolls.

In a debate moderated by TIMES NOW's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, panelists -- Siddharth Nath Singh, Natl Secy, BJP; Dr Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Spokesperson, Congress; Vinod Mehta, Editorial Chairman, Outlook; Ajoy Bose, Sr Journalist; R Rajagopalan, Senior Journalist -- discuss whether Rahul Gandhi's absence from the list of campaigners for the UP bypolls is a sign that Rahul Gandhi is scared to lose again.