Anybody becoming AICC Gen Secy won’t impact polls: Minister

New Delhi, Jan 24 (IANS) In a veiled attack on the Congress party over Priyanka Gandhis appointment as partys General Secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Union Minister of State for Communications Manoj Sinha on Thursday said that anybody becoming the "AICC General Secretary or in-charge will not matter in the polls".

He said that people in Uttar Pradesh have not even taken notice of the development.

"The discussion about Priyanka Gandhi being made the General Secretary is mostly in Delhi and among you people (media). People in the region of which she has been made in-charge have not even taken notice of this," Sinha said.

"If someone is made the General Secretary or in-charge, I think it is not going to make any difference to the elections," Sinha, who is a Lok Sabha member from Ghazipur in eastern Uttar Pradesh, said.

Sinha said he has since Wednesday "spoken with 1,000 to 2,000 people" from eastern Uttar Pradesh.

He also condemned the language used by Congress President Rahul Gandhi at his public meetings in Raebareli and Amethi earlier in the day.

He said that the promise of farmer loan waiver made by Rahul Gandhi was a hogwash and actually no loans are being waived.

"They (Congress) must first fulfil the promises they made to farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and then we will see. The fact is that the Congress party's promise of loan waiver was a fraud," he said.

Sinha added that farmers who are unable to repay their loans are being arrested in Karnataka, while farmers are continuing to commit suicide in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

He ruled out the possibility of Uttar Pradesh government planning any loan waiver for farmers ahead of polls.

"We are in principle not for waiving farm loans. We want to help farmers by reducing input cost and giving good price for their produce so that they can make more meaningful contribution to the economy and become self-reliant," he said.