A week after making his comeback felt in Parliament by taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “suit-boot ki sarkar”, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi boarded a train to Punjab on Tuesday to connect with farmers in distress.
While his destination was the grain markets in Sirhind, Govindgarh and Khanna in Punjab, Mr. Gandhi’s train ride in the general compartment of 12715 Sachkhand Express through the mid-day heat provided him ample opportunity to interact with the toiling masses.
“I have been told the condition of farmers is very bad. I want to see that myself,” Mr. Gandhi told presspersons from his window seat just before the train running from Nanded to Amritsar Junction pulled out of the New Delhi railway station. Asked if the land issue would gain momentum, he answered in the affirmative, pointing out that this was a central issue as land was being grabbed from the people who fed India.
Pictures of the journey released by the Congress showed Mr. Gandhi sharing something on his phone with a child seated on his lap, and explaining things to fellow passengers, with college batch-mate and his senior in Parliament, Jyotiraditya Scindia, in attendance.
After interacting with farmers en route and at the markets, Mr. Gandhi told presspersons that they were neither getting an appropriate price for their crops nor any compensation for the losses. Mr. Gandhi’s supporters took to the social media to hail the journey and contrast it with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent ride in a “sanitised” compartment of the Airport Line of the Delhi Metro. “Guess who is travelling like ‘sevak’ [servant] among people and who is travelling like yuvraj [prince] by getting an entire coach vacated,” said one tweet.
