A village in Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, a seat which he has held since 2004, is going digital from today with access to over 200 government services at the click of a mouse. But interestingly this initiative has been taken not by the Congress President but by the Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani who has been instrumental in reducing Rahul’s victory margin in Amethi from some 3.70 lakh votes in 2009 to 1.07 lakh in 2014.
Located in Musafirkhana tehsil of the district, the Pindara Thakur village would go digital under the ‘Digital India Programme’ of the Union government.
Smriti Irani, who has been pitched by the BJP as Rahul Gandhi’s rival in the constituency, which has been the Gandhi family stronghold, has been working untiringly there and is set to launch the “digital avatar” of the village in a ceremony on Saturday.
Musafirkhana Sub Divisional Magistrate Devi Dayal Verma told PTI that villagers of Pindara Thakur would be linked with Wi-Fi Chaupal and may use 2 GB free data for 15 days in the beginning and later this service would be provided to them at cheaper rates.
The union minister would also inaugurate the ‘Digital India Banking Service’ at the head post office of Amethi, which would help speed up the payment services in post offices.
Rahul Gandhi, who, for all this while has hardly missed an opportunity to take pot shots at the Prime Minister, had made assertions that in another 10-15 years, Amethi would develop so quickly that when people talk of the city-state of Singapore and California in the United States, they would talk of Amethi in the same breath.
Little did the people then understand that probably, judging by the current scenario, the Congress prince was making such attestations solely depending on the development schemes the BJP government has been planning and implementing, not only in Amethi but all across the nation.
