Mandya: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will visit Karnataka’s Mandya district, which has been hit by farmer suicides, later this month. There has been criticism that he was holding kisan padayatras only in states ruled by BJP and non-Congress parties — Maharashtra, Telangana and Rajasthan — while ignoring the Congress-ruled Karnataka.
Thus according to the reports, Rahul Gandhi will be visiting Bengaluru on July 23 before embarking on a padayatra in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. Sources said, he had been keen to visit Mandya, which is an hour’s drive from Bengaluru, and meet the families of farmers who have committed suicide.
He is planning to visit the region after the ongoing Assembly session, which was also rocked by a spate of farmer suicides. The session was in Belagavi for 10 days and now back in Bengaluru.
Sources said there had been a demand from senior Congress leaders that Mr Gandhi should visit at least one or two villages to send out a message that the state government was with them. There were others who felt that it would be embarrassing for Rahul as he cannot attack a government of his party as he has been doing in BJP-ruled states.
Pressure is mounting on Mr Gandhi to meet one or two families of deceased farmers before going to Andhra Pradesh since opposition parties have been claiming that he is partisan and has not bothered to visit Karnataka where more than 80 farmers have ended their lives in the last four months. In the last 17 days, over 60 farmers have committed suicide due to agrarian problems.
