Rahul to carry out padyatra in Telangana on Friday

Rahul Gandhi will embark on a 15-kilometre padyatra in Telangana’s Adilabad district on Friday, highlighting the issues of farmers over which he has aggressively taken on Narendra Modi government.

The Congress vice president, who had attacked the Modi government on the land bill issue in Parliament and also reached out to farmers in Punjab and Vidarbha region of Maharashtra in recent weeks, is visiting Telangana for the first time since it was carved out from Andhra Pradesh on June 2 last year.

Rahul will meet the families of farmers who have allegedly committed suicide due to agrarian distress in Telangana and will address farmers at Koratikal village at the end of his padyatra.

In the first leg of his stir, he had taken out a similar padyatra in Vidarbha region, notorious for farmer suicides, on April 30.

The Congress is looking at Rahul’s visit as a morale booster to party’s rank and file. Rahul is scheduled to directly go to Nirmal in Adilabad from Nanded in Maharashtra, skipping Hyderabad.

He was earlier scheduled to arrive in Hyderabad and interact with students of OsmaniaUniversity and party workers at the airport and then proceed to Nirmal, from where he is slated to undertake a 15-km padyatra on Friday to highlight farmers’ woes.

Rahul would spend the night in Adilabad, senior Congress leader and former minister D Sridhar Babu said.

Despite mounting an aggressive campaign and claiming credit for separate statehood of Telangana, Congress had last year lost elections to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti led by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The Congress leaders, however, said Rahul’s visit is to primarily focus on the plight of the farmers.

“Rahul’s campaign is meant to highlight the woes of the farmers in the country in general and that of the state in particular,” Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee working president Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said on Wednesday.

“He will tomorrow meet the families of farmers who have allegedly committed suicide due to agrarian distress in Telangana and console them,” he said.

Also, Rahul will address farmers at Koratikal village around 4 pm on Friday at the end of his padayatra.

As many as 936 farmers have committed suicide in the state during recent times, the TPCC chief said.

Telangana opposition parties Congress, Telugu Desam Party and Bharatiya Janata Party too have alleged that hundreds of farmers committed suicide due to agrarian crisis since the TRS government came to power last year, a charge denied by the administration.