With youth as the focus, Rahul Gandhi, general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), will address the issues of unemployment among the youth in Pune during his tour scheduled to start from a meeting at the St Vincent’s ground in the city on October 8.

Gandhi might skip Congress Bhavan but is scheduled to give 10 minutes to the leaders of the Indian Youth Forum members to discuss the core issue of unemployment among the youth

“We have sought time with the leader where we want to highlight the issues of unemployment in the area as well as the lengthy procedure involved in applying for the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and the Prime Minister’s Employment generation programme. The self employment generation scheme also has a bracket of Rs 30,000. We want the government to increase the amount to atleast Rs 50,000- Rs 1 lakh. We would want him to look at addressing the issues of the youth as he is a youth leader,’’said Avinash Bagwe, president of Indian Youth Forum in Pune and son of Congress candidate from Pune Cantonment -- Ramesh Bagwe.

Gandhi will be addressing the rallies for both Bagwe as well as Kasba Peth constituency candidate Rohit TilakGandhi is slated to address rallies in Panvel, Pune, Shahada in Aurangabad and in Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts.

Dutt said that he wanted to focus on Pune because of its “multiplicity growth’ in the city. Rahul is scheduled to tour the state on October 8-9 . Congress president Sonia will address a rally in Mumbai on October 10 and later on attend a joint meeting of the Congress-NCP alliance.