Rahul’s visit is part of Congress’ effort to win over NRIs as well as to showcase him as a leader ready for the big fight in 2019.
New Delhi: After the US and the Middle East, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will reach out to the Indian diaspora in Singapore.
His two-day Singapore visit will start from 8 March although a detailed itinerary of his trip is not available yet.
Sources told ThePrint that apart from meeting ministers and parliamentarians, Rahul will interact with the Indian diaspora in Singapore. He may visit a university as well, the sources said.
The party claims that Rahul’s speech at the University of California at Berkeley last September had generated lot of interest and a number of professionals abroad want to associate with the Congress.
This would be Rahul’s second visit to Singapore in the past one decade. Earlier in June 2006, he had travelled to the Southeast Asian city-state for a week on the invitation of its founder Lee Kuan Yew. Rahul had met several ministers, parliamentarians as well as people from the Indian community during his trip from 6 to 11 June, 2006.
However, Rahul’s upcoming visit will be different from the previous one since this time, he will go there as president of India’s grand old party. In 2006, Rahul was a first-time MP from Amethi, a newcomer to the politics.
Also, this would be Rahul’s third political trip abroad, which started with the US tour in September last year.
In January this year, Rahul visited Bahrain where he said, “Sam (Pitroda) and Milind (Deora) are organising a set of trips to different parts of the world.”
“We are going to do one to Canada; we are going to do one to Singapore and we are going to do another one to the Middle East,” he added.
Rahul’s Singapore visit is being seen as a part of the Congress party’s effort to attract the Indian community living abroad as well as to showcase him as a leader who is prepared for the big fight in 2019.
If the Congress sources are to be believed, Rahul will undertake similar foreign trips in the run-up to 2019.
In between, he started his campaign for the Karnataka assembly elections from Saturday. The southern state is likely to go to the polls in April this year.
I believe this is a pretext to cover up his irresistable foreign jaunts for reasons he knows well.
Now, if he suddenly leaves on a foreign trip without reason, people may very well gauge that desperation to go.