Rahul Gandhi returns to old 'Kalavati' form on Amravati padyatra

Rahul Gandhi’s trips to farmers’ homes have always been the stuff of Indian political legend. The Congress Vice President’s carefully managed visits have always had the right mix of pathos and hope, as he always left with  a parting promise to tell the powers that be of their woes. His visits in turn have often found their way into his speeches and his trip to Vidarbha on Thursday is unlikely to be any different.

In Vidarbha, Rahul Gandhi will be meeting with widows in nine households to discuss farmer suicides and will also meet with farmers as he hopes to figure out ways to tide over the problem of crop failure and agrarian woes. After his 15-km-long padyatra from Gunji village, Rahul will meet with the families of nine farmers who supposedly committed suicide.

An Indian Express report notes that of the nine families that Rahul Gandhi will be meeting, most families aren’t really sure who he is. More importantly, many of them don’t really fit the political purpose of the visit.  Only two of the farmers committed suicide as a result of agrarian woes. Two of them reportedly killed themselves because of arthritis and another two of the deaths are attributed to railway accidents.

However, comfortingly for Rahul, these nine households have one common attribute: They’re also opposed to selling their land, which dovetails neatly with his opposition to the Land Bill.

While the farmers he’s meeting with are pretty hopeful he’ll be able to help them – hopeful for loans waivers,  irrigation facilities and a decent price for their crop – Gandhi’s past track record is less than reassuring.

The most prominent symbol of his inability to follow up on his promises ironically enough lives in the Vidarbha region itself. Kalavati Bandurkar, who was visited by Rahul in 2008 in an attempt to understand the agrarian crisis in Yavatmal. was the centre of a a case study he presented in Parliament supporting the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. And that was pretty much the end of his effort.

Kalavati made an aborted attempt at a political career, received a donation from NGO Sulabh International due to being mentioned by Rahul Gandhi and has lived in hope of meeting the Congress Vice President again. Even though he is indeed touring Vidarbha again,  it is unlikely to happen.

“I am eager to meet Rahul again. But nobody is helping me this time," Kalavati told the Indian Express .

But it’s not just Kalavati who’s had little to show for a Rahul visit. Other house calls in the past have also had little impact on its occupants.

An Al Jazeera report had documented how the home Rahul visited in 2008 was the site of multiple misfortunes after he came calling. Rahul stayed over at the residence of a farmer in Jawaharpur in Amethi in the run up to the 2009 general elections and had pledged to ’take care of Dalits'.

However, the government fired the farmer from his job,  his house was burnt down allegedly by Samajwadi Party workers, Congress workers refused to recognise him and the Congress Vice President never showed up again.

“Congress did not help me. The party men who had visited our village in 2008 refused to recognise me. It was then I gave up on the party,” Sunita Kori was quoted as saying in the Al Jazeera report.

The rebuilding of her house consequently became the site of a political tussle between the Samajwadi Party and AAP’s Kumar Vishwas during the 2014 general election as they both attempted to show up the Congress Vice President. So while Kori may have finally benefited from being associated with the Congress president, he shouldn’t perhaps expect any thanks from her.

Enjoying a wave of positive headlines since his return from an almost two month long vacation, Rahul Gandhi and his theories on the agrarian crisis are clearly the flavour of the week. As Firstpost’s R Jagannathan pointed out there is more to the problem of farmer suicides and the Congress Vice President’s suggestion of increasing minimum support prices isn’t really a solution. However, that’s unlikely to deter Rahul Gandhi as he heads back to Delhi to present his learnings from his trip, which if his statement in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday is anything to go by, will be  about scoring political points against a government that finds itself caught on the wrong foot on the Land Bill..

Firstpost’s Sandipan Sharma noted  that the Congress Vice President redemption lies only in being consistent and faithful to the politics he is pursuing. It may also require him to remember the people whose homes he uses as the backdrop for the political ambitions – and maybe return the favour this time around,