Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday began a 15-km day-long padyatra in Amravati district in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, during which he is meeting the families of farmers who committed suicide.
Rahul, who reached Nagpur on Wednesday night, left in the morning for village Gunji to begin the foot march dubbed as 'sanvad padyatra'.
On the way to Gunji, people were seen lined up on roads at Kondhali and Talegaon villages to greet the Congress leader. Rahul stopped at Talegaon for some time, before proceeding to Gunji.
Rahul spoke to the people who greeted him and sought to know their problems and the issues affecting them.
He will be visiting five villages between Gunji to Ramgaon and will meet the farmers who have suffered crop losses due to unseasonal rain. He is accompanied by MPCC president Ashok Chavan and senior state Congress leaders.
Maharashtra is one of the states that experienced severe agrarian crisis and Amravati division in Vidarbha region has witnessed many suicide cases of farmers this year.
Ahead of his visit, a farmer, Gajanan Sheshrao Khongal, allegedly committed suicide by jumping into a well in Morshi tehsil of the district on Tuesday.
In Gunji, Rahul met family members of farmers Nilesh Walke and Ambadas Vahile who had committed suicide recently.
Gunji, with a population of 1,200 people, was the first stop in the 'padyatra' undertaken by the Congress scion where he also met a group of children from orphanges and interacted with them briefly.
Subsequently, Rahul marched to Shahpur village, another suicide-prone area, five kms from Gunji in Amravati district, which is represented by Virendra Jagtap of Congress in the Maharashtra Assembly.
Image: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi at a farmer's house during his ‘kisan padyatra’. Photograph: ANI/Twitter
