New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is likely to attend a farmer rally against the land ordinance in Delhi on April 19, senior party leader Digvijaya Singh indicated on Monday.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the party general secretaries, Singh said: “All senior leaders of the Congress party will attend the Kisan rally….Rahul Gandhi is one of our senior leaders.”
On the eve of the budget session in February, Gandhi took a “leave of absence” from party affairs to reflect on recent events and the future course of the party. He later extended his leave, which forced the party to defer its ambitious farmers’ rally planned at the Capital’s iconic Ramlila Ground in the first week of April.
“The government has closed all its doors as far as discussion on this anti-farmer bill is concerned,” Singh added.
The farmers’ rally is touted as a mega event for the Congress in the backdrop of its rigid stand on the land acquisition bill. The party had earlier staged two demonstrations at Jantar Mantar and topped it with an Opposition march from Parliament to Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Party president Sonia Gandhi had led the march but a section of the Congress leaders felt that Rahul’s presence would have further bolstered the party’s movement on the NDA government’s land bill.