Sonia spends whole day at Seva Dal camp

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, OCT. 14. The Congress(I) president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, spent the whole day today with the delegates at the instructor training camp of the Seva Dal at Padampura near here before leaving for Delhi in the evening. Ms. Gandhi, who had made a surprise decision to stay overnight at the camp, some 30 km from the State capital, after inaugurating the 10-day training programme, also promised the 650-odd participants to try and come back on October 19 for the concluding session.

Old-timers in Seva Dal point out that Ms. Gandhi has thus become the first Congress president after Jawaharlal Nehru to stay at the camp premises like any other participant. In fact, she is the first party president in 12 years to attend any Seva Dal camp. The previous one to do so was Rajiv Gandhi.

Despite the arrangements made for her at the Raj Bhavan guest house here, Ms. Gandhi preferred to stay back at Padampura, a Jain pilgrim centre which has only modest and simple rooms befitting any place of religious worship. There too she insisted on arrangements similar to those made for the other participants.

The carpets spread out in the rooms had to be removed at her request. The liveried waiters hurriedly brought to the place by the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation had to make a hasty retreat.

No senior Congress leader, either from the Centre or the State, was asked to stay back at the camp. Other than the senior functionaries of Seva Dal and the participants, only Mr. Janardhan Dwivedi, the AICC secretary, was at the camp site for overnight stay.

The participants were pleasantly surprised to find Ms. Sonia Gandhi up and awake at 4-30 a.m. for ``Vande Mataram''. She was there at PT, show of martial arts and aerobics which ended with the flag-hoisting. She joined the breakfast too sitting in line with the rest.

``She behaved like a real camper. She did not use a vehicle even for once inside the campus,'' noted a participant from Andhra Pradesh. ``It has been a great morale-booster for the workers that the president herself stayed with them at the camp. This has happened for the first time in the memory of most of the participants who have done up to their NTC (national training camps)'', noted Mr. Janardhan Dwivedi.

Ms. Gandhi did not make a speech during the day's session. It was her day for listening. Some of the party workers seized the opportunity to pour their heart out to the party chief on the local level Congress politics which she tried to discourage. There were many pleading for a better role for the Seva Dal in the Congress party. The there were, again, ones like a local sarpanch, Ms. Pushpa Sharma, who talked to her on the water scarcity in the area. The Seva Dal volunteers also taught Ms. Gandhi how to salute in their style which she seemed to pick up fast.

During the day, among the party leaders, the Chief Minister, Mr. Ashok Gehlot, who shuttled between Jaipur and Padampura, the PCC(I) president, Dr. Girija Vyas, and Mrs. Urmila Ben Patel, election in charge for Rajasthan, only met Ms. Gandhi.

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