Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi during his padyatra for Maharashtra farmers
Rahul Gandhi is on a padyatra or trek through villages in Maharashtra's Vidarbha, where a tragically high number of desperate, debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide.
The 44-year-old Congress vice-president plans to cover 15 km on foot and will stop in five villages in Amravati to meet farmers whose crop has been destroyed by unseasonal rain. He is also visiting the homes of farmers who have killed themselves.
Rahul Gandhi set off from Gunji village at a brisk pace early today, surrounded by party workers holding up Congress flags. At about 10 am, the temperature already hovered at an uncomfortable 35 degrees Celsius. It is expected to touch 43 degrees by afternoon.
Villagers crowded around Mr Gandhi as he stopped to talk to them. Others waved at him from rooftops. Mr Gandhi also stopped at a house in Gunji, bending to enter through the low door.
The ruling BJP and its allies have variously dismissed his recent travels to meet farmers as "photo-opportunities," "rent-a-cause" and "political stunts."
Kumar Vishwas, the Aam Aadmi Party leader who lost to Rahul Gandhi in the national elections last year, said today, "He has returned from adventure tourism and now he wants to tour India. His government had 15 years to improve the condition of farmers and failed to do so."
Rahul, who returned from a 56-day sabbatical abroad recently, is seen as trying rebuild his party after it was decimated in the national elections last May. That was followed by several others in states like Maharashtra, which he is touring now.
He has declared war on the BJP government at the Centre for what he calls its "anti-farmer policies" and has vowed to go "wherever farmers are facing difficulties, to raise their voice."
Earlier this week, the Congress leader met farmers in Punjab, like Maharashtra a state ruled by the BJP and an ally.
Widely tipped to take over as Congress president from his mother Sonia Gandhi soon, Rahul's focus on farmers is seen as an attempt to consolidate the support of 67 per cent of the country's population.