Rahul set to launch kisan padyatra

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, April 26

After having successfully raised the pitch against the government on the land ordinance issue, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is all set to embark on a nationwide Kisan Padyatra on the lines of the one he undertook to Bhatta Parsaul in UP when the Congress led UPA was in power.

The march, expected to begin within the next week to ten days ( while the Parliament is still in session), seeks to position the Congress alongside farmers as part of the party's long term political revival strategy against the BJP.

Top sources in the Congress said the yatra would likely begin from Vidharbha in Maharashtra and would immediately after concentrate on the farm distressed areas of Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in the first phase. Gradually Rahul will travel to affected areas in other states as well.

During his journeys, Rahul Gandhi plans to walk 15 to 18 kms a day to engage farmers on issues of the Government's land ordinance, low MSP for produce and poor procurement of stocks leading to mass suicides by farmers across the country.

"Rahul Gandhi will initially visit areas where large scale suicides by farmers have been reported. The idea is to share the pain of farmers and get the first hand information of the problems they are facing. The schedule of Rahul's Padyatra could be announced within the next few days, " said a Congress leader in the know of Rahul's future political plan. 

The yatra, sources said, would be an extension of Rahul Gandhi's travel to Bhatta Parsaul in UP some years ago when he joined the farmers to protest forcible land acquisition by the then Mayawati led BSP government in the state. The visit had become the starting point for UPA's land acquisition law which the Modi Government has tweaked to bring the new land ordinance, which the Congress is opposing inside and outside Parliament.

Rahul recently attacked the Centre on the ordinance in Lok Sabha. Before that he and Congress President Sonia Gandhi had launched a massive political offensive against the PM by accusing the Government of pursuing anti farmer policies.

Projecting the BJP as anti farmer is integral to Congress's revival plan, which Rahul Gandhi will lead, his Kisan Padyatra being the starting point to connect to the masses who had deserted the Congress in Lok Sabha elections last May.

The Kisan Padyatra of Rahul is being described in Congress circles as the mass connect drives former PM Indira Gandhi had launched post Emergency. She had returned to power. Sonia had similarly launched nationwide travel when she returned from the cold in 1998 to become Congress President after years of hiatus since her husband and former PM Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.