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Rahul assails depiction of farmers as thieves for taking away cots
A day after participants at his inaugural ‘Khaat Sabha’ decamped with cots, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday came to their defence, saying while farmers were branded as “thieves” for taking away the humble ‘charpoy’, industrialists like Vijay Mallya who did not repay huge bank loans escaped with just the “defaulter” tag.
Gorakhpur: A day after participants at his inaugural ‘Khaat Sabha’ decamped with cots, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday came to their defence, saying while farmers were branded as “thieves” for taking away the humble ‘charpoy’, industrialists like Vijay Mallya who did not repay huge bank loans escaped with just the “defaulter” tag.
“Kisan Khatiya le jata hai to wo use chor kehte hain. Magar jab bade udyogpati, Mallyaji jaise, bhag jaate hain to use defaulter kehte hain. (If a farmer takes away a charpoy, he is called a thief but people like Vijay Mallya who run away with crores of rupees are called mere defaulters),” he said.
The Congress vice-president was addressing farmers after a road show here. He had earlier accused the ruling dispensation of allowing Mallya to “escape” abroad even when he was facing charges of loan default in the country.
Rahul, who is undertaking about a month-long 2500-km mahayatra from Deoria to Delhi that started on Tuesday, is highlighting the plight of farmers.
As part of the ‘yatra’, “Khaat Sabha” (Charpoy meetings) are being organised for Rahul to interact with farmers. At the inaugural Khaat Sabha on Tuesday, moments after Rahul left after having made a raft of promises like farm loan waiver, reduction of power tariff and higher minimum support price for agricultural produce, the venue plunged into utter chaos with men, women and children scampering in, lifting the charpoys and hurrying towards their homes.
Later, at a ‘Khaat Sabha’ in Sant Kabirnagar district on Wednesday, Rahul referred to the incident of locals taking away the cots brought for the meeting, saying, “Our opponents see farmers as poor persons but I always feel that farmers are the real power of Hindustan”.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, people are facing problems but it has no effect on the Prime Minister. On the state of affairs in Uttar Pradesh, he said that farmers were only getting bills but no electricity.
Rahul said the farmers who are in "distress and dying" needed to be helped and that he undertook the yatra to help reach the voice of peasants to Delhi.
"Is this justice? Should the farmer not get remunerative price for their produce? Should the farmer not get the right price for his 'blood and sweat' or should big industrialists get it instead?," he asked the farmers.
