Rahul Gandhi visits a farmer's house in Maharashtra
Rahul Gandhi has described his interaction with farmers in Maharashtra over a 15-km trek today as "disturbing." He visited five villages in Amravati in the Vidarbha region, where over 600 desperate farmers in debt have committed suicide since January this year.
"The farmers feel abandoned," the Congress vice-president said on Thursday evening at end of his "padyatra," during which he met, among others, the family of farmer Ambadas Wahile, who drank pesticide in February.
Rahul Gandhi continued his attack on the ruling BJP saying, "The role of the government is to comfort people in pain...This government belongs to a select few big businessmen... not to farmers."
He was here, he said, because "the government will not help farmers." Also because a BJP minister in Haryana had called farmers who had committed suicide "cowards," he said, promising "we will stand by you".
As he walked, farmers flocked to meet Mr Gandhi and share their woes in the hope that the visit of a leader of his stature means some relief will follow. Mr Gandhi, whose party was thrown out of power in the state six months ago, candidly said he could only do things for them at the party level.
But another 44-year-old politician sought to remind Mr Gandhi that it was his party that ruled Maharashtra till recently. "They ruled for 15 years, he is also answerable for the condition of farmers," said Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP.
Indeed, among the homes that Mr Gandhi visited today was that of Manikrao Thavkar who hanged himself last year, when the Congress was in power.
Mr Gandhi's aggressive campaign against the Modi government's proposed land reforms ever since he returned from a 56-day sabbatical abroad, is being seen as a comeback not just for him, but also, his partymen's hope for the Congress, which was decimated by the BJP in the national elections last May and has also faced humiliating defeat in several states, including Maharashtra, since then.