Rahul Gandhi visits Male

Monday, February 8th, 2010

General Secretary of the ruling Congress party of India Rahul Gandhi will arrive in Male today according to informed sources. Rahul who is the son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Congress Leader Sonia Gandhi, will meet President Mohamed Nasheed and visit some Indian Government collaborated projects during his visit.

Rahul’s father Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi forged very cordial relations wit the Maldives during the tenure of President Gayoom. Indian Government became a major partner in the development pursuit of Maldives. Indian Government also responded immediately by sending their troops to crush an attempt to takeover the country by armed Tamil insurgents from neighboring Sri Lanka on 3 November 1988. The premier tertiary hospital in Male, Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital is a donation by the Indian Government in addition to many other Indian assisted development projects.

Indian companies are also investing more than US$ one billion in tourism, housing, energy, health and other areas in President Mohamed Nasheeds privatization program. There is a new agreement in the offing to counter terrorism and exchange information in light of the vulnerability of the tourist paradise to terrorist threats in the region. The Ministry of Health has last month signed an MOU to handover management of IGMH to popular Indian Hospital chain Apollo Hospitals.

Rahul Gandhi 38, is an MP and one of the most promising young Indian leaders. He is one of the potential leaders to take leadership of Congress and become prime minister. Rahul’s Great grand father Jawahrlal Nehru was first Prime Minister of India. His Grandmother Indira Gandhi was also Prime Minister of India. When Congress won the general election in 2004, Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi was the party choice to become Prime Minister but she declined the top job and opted to remain party leader. Political analysts said Sonia made the decision to pave the way for Rahul to become Prime Minister in future but in a fast changing India there is growing opposition to dynastic succession. However, Rahul has so far proved his worth by becoming among the most popular Indian young leader.

Rahul and his sister have visited the Maldives earlier.

Reader Comments

  1. Dear Editor,

    Further to your article on Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Maldives and his proposed visits to Indian investment sites under President Nasheed’s privatisation program, I understand that the President is going to visit Hanimadhoo island in the Northern Province with Rahul Gandhi where an Indian company plans to build an international airport. The tragedy is that their is a hidden agenda behind all this and that is that the Maldivian government in its haste to privatise anything and everything that is publicly owned has agreed to hand over the whole of Hanimadhoo to the Indian company and move the inhabitants to another island. How democratic is this? The Vice President talks about things that happened about 50 years ago and that also without studying the events that led up to those events.I wonder what he has to say in this situation where a government in which he is the Vice President is going to physically remove the inhabitants of an island in the name of development and hand it over to a foreign party.

    What a farce this is! I wonder whom they are fooling, maybe themselves since nobody believes these politicians any more.

    Regards.

    Posted by Jamal Ali | February 8, 2010, 11:24 am

  2. Good point to think about. The British and Addu, Suvadhiva Republic and now India and ……… God only know what.

    Definitely India has been eyeing on the domination of the Indian Ocean. Fact is that the Americans are in Diego Garcia, south of Addu. Hanimaadhoo is the closest they can get to install radars to monitor movements in the Indian Ocean. Where is the interest of the Maldives in all this. Pity the politicians (so called saviours of the nation) for paving the way for repetition of history.

    We have lost Diego Garcia (Foalhavahi), Minicoy Islands (Maliku) now what ?

    Posted by The Musketeer | February 9, 2010, 11:10 am

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