Telangana:
Rahul Gandhi isn't due in Telangana till Friday to visit families of farmers who have committed suicide, but he's already helping them - inadvertently.
The state government sent representatives on Tuesday to meet with some of the families who have been shortlisted for house calls by Mr Gandhi in the drought-struck area of Adilabad, over 200 kilometres from Hyderabad.
"One lakh rupees is on behalf of the government, 50,000 rupees to settle outstanding loans and Rs 10,000 is from my side," said Indrakaran Reddy, a minister from Adilabad, after visiting the home of Bondla Linganna, who killed himself earlier this year. The family of another farmer, V. Rajeswar, was also handed Rs 10,000.
Mr Gandhi is scheduled to visit five villages in the area - each of them has seen a farmer suicide in the last year.
"We are happy that at least by announcing Rahul ji's visit, the families are getting some sort of financial help which can ease their problems," said Sridhar Babu, former minister and Congress leader.
The road from the Hyderabad airport to Mr Gandhi's scheduled first stop - Nirmal in Adilabad - is lined with posters and cutouts welcoming him to India's youngest state, where his party was reduced to a virtual non-entity in last year's election.
It was the Congress-led union government that agreed in 2009 to the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the carving out of Telangana as a new state. But as the other parts of the state roiled with a violent backlash, the government puts its decision on hold, a grave miscalculation for which it was heavily punished in both the residuary and new state. Andhra Pradesh voted for the Telugu Desam Party, pushing the Congress out of office. Telangana picked K Chandrasekhar Rao or KCR, who had fronted the campaign for statehood.
This is Mr Gandhi's first visit to Telangana state. His party hopes his packed 24-hour tour will reenergize cadres and prove that in a state where at least 700 farmers have killed themselves in the last 10 months, it is the Congress that cares.