After a poor turnout at Rahul Gandhi's rally here last week, Congress today pulled out all stops in a bid to make Congress President Sonia Gandhi's poll meeting at Shastri Park a success by ferrying thousands of people in buses from east and north-east parts of the city.
The venue was nearly full to its capacity with police sources saying around 15,000 people attended the rally.
Senior Congress leaders including Shakeel Ahmed, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, DPCC chief J P Agrawal and 20 MLAs of the Trans-Yamuna area among others were in attendance to ensure its success.
Sonia was greeted by the crowd when she waved and started her speech with popular Hindi proverbs 'Haath kangan ko arsi kya' and 'Pratayksh ke liye praman ki jaroorat nahi hoti' (what is visible to open eyes does not need any proof) referring to development of Delhi during the three terms of Congress government.
Congress workers, wearing Nehru caps and in white trousers and shirts, were seen managing the crowd along with Delhi Police. Hundreds of them had merged with locals to be part of the crowd.
Unlike Rahul's rally in Ambedkar Nagar of south Delhi last week where half of the seats were vacant, police and party workers had a hard time accommodating the crowd at Shastri Park.
Congress leaders made several requests from the dais to police to allow people to enter rally venue.
"I request police to either allow people to enter the venue or remove curtains at security gates so that people standing on the road could see proceedings," said a Congress leader.
