Rahul Gandhi takes Out Padyatra in Telangana

Janjivan Bureau
Adilabad: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had to conduct his ‘padyatra’ in Telangana this morning of his 15-kilometre route. Mr Gandhi drove to Korutkal, the first of five villages he is visiting today to meet families of farmers who committed suicide in the last year in Telangana’s drought-struck Adilabad district.
He drove some distance out of Korutkal and when the crowds cleared, set off on foot for the next village at a brisk pace. “Very difficult to keep pace with him. He walks so briskly,” said a villager admiringly.
At the home of V Rajendra, a farmer who allegedly killed himself earlier this month because of crop loss, Mr Gandhi met his wife Gangavva, who fell at his feet. Mr Gandhi consoled her and handed a cheque for Rs. two lakh.
In the second village, he met two families.
All over the rural countryside, there are posters and cutouts of Rahul Gandhi – on trees and water tanks and electric poles and even on the back of a buffalo.
The Congress has stationed two translators in every household that Mr Gandhi, who does not speak Telugu, is visiting. This is his first visit to Telangana after the new state was formed by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh in June last year.
Activists in Telangana say that over 900 farmers have killed themselves in the last 10 months, distressed over agricultural loss. But the Telangana Rashtra Samithi or TRS state government says the number is less than 100 and accuses Mr Gandhi’s Congress, which ruled till last year, of neglecting farmers of the region.
Last year, after ruling undivided Andhra Pradesh for a decade, the Congress lost elections in both the residuary and the new state, and Mr Gandhi’s visit is also seen as an attempt to re-energise the party’s cadres.