Rahul Gandhi’s padyatra on farmer issues in T’gana today

Rahul Gandhi will embark on a 15-km ‘padyatra’ (<g data-gr-id="16">footmarch</g>) in Telangana’s Adilabad district on Friday, highlighting the issues of farmers over which he has aggressively taken on the 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.

Gandhi 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 <g data-gr-id="14">padyatra</g>.

In the first leg of his stir, he had taken out a similar <g data-gr-id="17">padyatra</g> in Vidarbha region, notorious for farmer suicides, on April 30. The Congress is looking forward to Gandhi’s visit as a morale boost to party’s rank and file. Gandhi is scheduled to directly go to Nirmal in Adilabad from Nanded in Maharashtra, skipping Hyderabad. He was earlier scheduled to arrive here and interact with students of Osmania University and party workers at the airport and then proceed to Nirmal, from where he is slated to undertake a <g data-gr-id="18">padyatra</g>.