Amravati--In her one-room dimly-lit house in Rajna village in Chandur Railway tehsil, 60-year-old Shantabai Neware doesn’t even have a satranji (a rough carpet) to offer the guest to sit on. All she has in her house in the name of belongings is an old rickety wooden rack with a few utensils kept neatly on the shelves and a small hearth by the side. The other room had crashed last monsoon and there is no way she can rebuild it. Naturally, she has no preparations to make to welcome her special guest Thursday — none other than Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
When asked if she knew who Rahul Gandhi was, Shantabai takes a long pause, covering her mouth with her pallu. She doesn’t answer but smiles shyly. When prompted if she had heard of Indira Gandhi, her face lights up and she nods, muttering a “yes”. Further asked if Rahul was anybody to Indira, Shanta says, “perhaps her grandson”.
That is how most of the widows from the nine households that the Congress vice-president is scheduled to visit Thursday as part of his Kisan Padayatra programme react to the question. All these nine households have seen farmer suicides since January 2014.
The Dhamangaon Railway assembly seat was bagged by Congress’s Virendra Jagtap in the 2014 elections. With the sudden activity around them, the locals seem to hope Rahul will change the course of their life, unmindful of the fact that he does not belong to the ruling party in the state or the Centre.
Indian Express
