Cong to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary

Congress workers across the nation would undertake padayatras, organise seminars and hold debates to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary next month.

The Congress' week-long celebrations from October 2 to 9 come even as the Modi government is planning to launch a mass movement to shun the use of single-use plastic and step up the clean India campaign.

In a letter the state Congress units, AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal asked them to organise massive padayatras with party workers donning the Gandhi topi, carrying photographs of the Mahatma and raising slogans to create awareness about his teachings.

“All senior leaders may please be contacted and requested to participate in the padayatra,” he said in the letter asking the PCC units to embark on the padayatra from a “significant place” after offering floral tributes to the Mahatma.

Venugopal also directed the state units to organise lectures, seminars, or debates at the block level, district level and the state level to propagate the values that the Mahatma stood for.

“The theme should be the relevance of Mahatma Gandhi in today's social, political and economic scenario in the country,” he said.

“This is an important occasion for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the values he stood for: viz non-violence, communal harmony, service to the poor, constructive work, prohibition, elimination of untouchability, prevention of atrocities on SC/ST and women and strengthening the institution of Panchayati Raj,” Venugopal said.

Meanwhile, the government has planned awareness programmes in 4,000 towns and six lakh villages across the country on the ill-effects of single-use plastic.

The campaign will begin on September 11 and continue till October 1. On October 2, volunteers would fan out across the country to collect plastic waste and segregate it into recyclable and non-recyclable categories.

Gram panchayats have also been asked to carry out cleanliness drives on village roads built under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and future repair works or construction is done using a mix of plastic waste.