Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be visiting the South East Asian countries starting from December 8, where his first stop will be Malaysia. This will be the first visit of Gandhi after the grand old party faced a debacle in the recently concluded Assembly elections.
According to the sources, the Congress leader will first land in Kuala Lumpur and will stay till December 10. Subsequently, Rahul will reach Singapore on the next day where he will be staying till December 12. Later, Rahul will travel to Indonesia's national capital Jakarta on December 13, where he will stay for a single day.
Rahul Gandhi will miss the Winter Session
At the end of his trip, the 53-year-old leader will travel to Vietnam's national capital on December 14. He will leave for Delhi on December 15. Although large segments of the trip are yet to be known, he will be addressing events of the Indian diaspora and students at some of the universities there. Moreover, news agency ANI sources reported that "The Congress leader is likely to meet the Vietnam Communist Party leaders".
Besides the elections debacle, his trip came at a time when the Winter Session of the Parliament was currently going on. Moreover, Gandhi has been summoned by MP/MLA court on December 16 in connection with a 2018 case over using derogatory remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a Bengaluru conference. However, neither Congress nor Gandhi reacted to whether he would be attending or not.
BJP leads in Assembly Elections
The BJP swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland.
The Congress ousted the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana to make it 3-1 for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the latest round of Assembly elections billed as a semi-final before next year's poll showdown.
The Winter session of Parliament is scheduled to have 15 sittings till December 22.
