Dubai: The scheduled visit of Rahul Gandhi, president of Congress Party in India, to the UAE on January 9 has been postponed, party sources said on Sunday.
It was only on Saturday that Gandhi’s visit to the UAE was revealed by a senior member of INCAS UAE, an Indian community group in the UAE with political allegiance to Indian National Congress, the main opposition party in their country.
Punnakkan Mohammad Ali, general secretary of INCAS UAE committee, had told Gulf News that Rahul will visit the UAE after attending the Biennial International Convention of GOPIO (Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin, a global networking platform for Indian businessmen,) in Bahrain.
In a statement issued on Sunday morning, Ali and Mahadevan Vazhasseri, president of INCAS said Gandhi’s visit has been postponed for the time being.
“Discussions are on to reschedule his visit and hold it in a much grander way at the earliest,” the statement said.
When contacted, Ali cited unforeseen technical issues as the reasons for postponing the visit.
“We have just received this information from Delhi. We had already made many arrangements as per the previous plan,” he said.
The January visit to the GCC was dubbed to be his first visit abroad after Gandhi took charge as the president of the 132-year-old Congress party, succeeding his mother Sonia Gandhi, who led the party for the last 19 years.
A few members of the All India Congress Committee had already visited the UAE to inspect the venues suggested by the Congress workers here. AICC members were expected to visit the UAE again on December 26 and divulge more details about Rahul’s itinerary then, according to Ali.
Cambridge educated Rahul, 47 is a member of the Indian parliament as well as a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs.
