The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) has appointed as many as 10 of its leaders as translators to help All India Congress Committee (AICC) vice-president Rahul Gandhi interact with families of farmers who committed suicide. Two leaders will be deployed at the house of every farmer where Mr. Gandhi will go calling on May 15 as part of his Kisan Sandesh Yatra.
The leaders in question are fluent in Telugu as well as English, which will ensure that the proper message reaches the AICC leader, who cannot understand Telugu, the only language which widows of the farmers speak. Unaware of the arrangement being made by the TPCC for their help, the widowed women sported a blank look when The Hindu asked them whether they could convey their plight or understand if Mr. Gandhi spoke in English or Hindi.
The AICC vice-president’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and father, Rajiv Gandhi, had not faced any such problem when they addressed election rallies at Adilabad and Nirmal in 1982 and 1989. Both the leaders had spoken to the masses in Hindi.
