New Delhi: In a first in the last one decade, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday reached his parliamentary constituency Amethi during voting.Gandhi's visit comes as the going seemed to be getting tough for the incumbent MP, more so after the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi visited the family bastion and urged the people to shun dynastic politics and vote for development instead.Gandhi reached the Fursatganj airstrip early morning and then went to be with his supporters.He drove past many polling booths and personally saw to it that voters were having no difficulty in casting their votes.He reluctantly interacted with reporters and told them that he had always been working to strengthen democracy in the country.Asked to respond on the 'neech rajniti' barb of his sister, Priyanka Vadra against BJP's Narendra Modi, the Gandhi scion said no one was low by caste, but it was the thinking, politics and actions which were low and despicable."Neechi jaati nahin hoti, soch aur rajniti hoti hai," he added.Smriti Irani, BJP's candidate from Amethi, criticised Rahul Gandhi's comment and pointed out that for BJP low thinking politics' was "usurping flats meant for widows of Kargil martyrs, treating Pakistani prime minister on Biryani after the Pakistan Army beheaded two Indian soldiers and to allow millions of tonnes of foodgrain to rot in godowns rather than distributing it to the needy and poor".Kumar Vishwas, who is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from Amethi, said that he was confident that people had decided to favour the broom (AAP's party symbol) and would defeat Rahul Gandhi.He also slammed Narendra Modi, by saying that coming in a chopper and waving hands from the dias will not win his party votes.Circulating images of Rahul Gandhi interacting with voters at polling booths here Wednesday while polling was on for the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, both the BJP and the AAP alleged that the Congress is trying to influence voters on election day.The images showed the Congress vice president talking to voters inside a polling booth in Amethi, while another image showed him looking at an EVM while a voter stands next to him.The images were shared on the Twitter handles of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)."EC overlooking blatant violation of election norms by Gandhis on a polling day is shocking. Clear signs of a very desperate Congress," BJP leader Vijay Goel tweeted.An Election Commission (EC) official told IANS that while candidates are allowed to go to polling booths, they cannot go to the voting area where EVMs are kept."The candidates can go to polling booths, to see in general if the voting is fair, but they cannot go where the EVMs are," a EC official said.Earlier, there was a confrontation between BJP's candidate Smriti Irani and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's aide Preeti Sahay with Irani alleging that Sahay was trying to influence voters at a booth.
Updated on: May 08, 2014 10:57 IST
