Congress party Vice President Rahul Gandhi scheduled to address a public meeting here on Wednesday arranged by the party’s overseas wing as part of its push to enlist Non-resident Indians (NRIs). On Monday in Washington, Gandhi, who is on a tour of the US, spoke at the pro-Democratic Party think tank, Centre for American Progress (CAP), which was founded by John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman and former US President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff. Gandhi also met Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat.

Rahul Gandhi address a public meeting

The Congress party leader scheduled to address a meeting on Tuesday at Princeton University in New Jersey. It organised by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Centre of International Security Studies and is restricted to the university community. The New York meeting at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square caps Gandhi’s US visit with an interaction with the general public in a strategy devised by Sam Pitroda, who appointed Chairman of the Congress Party’s Overseas Department, to expand its NRI ranks.

Shudh Parkash Singh, the president of the party’s overseas wing (INOC) in the US, told IANS he was organising the meeting for Gandhi so “NRIs can know first hand what his (Gandhi’s) vision is, what his ideology is and Congress is. “We wanted him to have meetings with people, face-to-face, in order to turn around (his) image projected by the BJP through managed media. They are out to destroy his image and we are trying to do the opposite.”

Singh said the event financed entirely by the INOC, supplemented with contributions from sponsors and advertisers in a brochure published for the event. Gandhi will be in New York City in the middle of the UN General Assembly’s annual high-level session, which brings in global leaders for meetings in the UN and elsewhere in the city. Asked if Gandhi planned to meet any of the visiting leaders, Singh said he would not. “His New York visit is exclusive for our event.”

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