Tripalpur, UP:
A security scare - a man near him was found with a gun - didn't make Rahul Gandhi miss a step in his walkathon in Uttar Pradesh. UP is being run by dalals (brokers), he said, a statement that is likely to incense Chief Minister Mayawati.
"All the farmers' land is being taken away. And this is happening because you are not united. That is the problem, the entire state is divided. 'Dalals' are running the state. You may not like it, but this is the truth," Mr Gandhi said.
The drama of Mr Gandhi's
padayatra or march also got a leg up today courtesy a man with a revolver who was spotted worryingly close this morning to the Congress General Secretary. Mr Gandhi's SPG (Special Protection Group) members detained the man as he approached Mr Gandhi. Hari Mohan Sharma was handed by the SPG to the UP police. He claimed to be a Congress worker.
The UP Police warned that Mr Gandhi and his security are ignoring basics. "We do not know the route he is taking, the places he is going to visit, the places where he is going to halt. So it is a free for all kind of a thing," said a senior police officer, identified as SSP Singh, to PTI.
The officer said Mr Sharma was driving by when he saw Mr Gandhi and decided to get out of his car to get a closer look. He had his revolver - which is a licensed weapon - with him.
Mr Gandhi is walking through villages along the Yamuna Expressway; he is scheduled to arrive in Aligarh on Saturday to attend a maha-panchayat where farmers have been asked to share their views of UP's land acquisition policies. The state votes next year and Mr Gandhi's march unofficially launches the Congress' campaign and attempt to reclaim UP from Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Mayawati's government has been critical of Mr Gandhi's attempts to affiliate himself with farmers. He has spent two nights at different farmers' houses, and stops frequently to share a cup of tea with them as he tells them that their land "is being stolen" by a government that is bent on selling agricultural land to real estate developers. Farmers, he says, are the only party not making a profit.
The Supreme Court has agreed - at least in the case of close to 150 hectares of land that was taken from farmers in the Shahberi village of Grater Noida. The court has ordered the land be returned to the farmers. The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority was indicted for taking the land for industry, but then transferring it to developers for residential projects. The judges said, "Everything is meticulously planned... it is a brazen overreach of the judicial process. The authority has to act in public interest but what it did was to serve private builders' interest. You don't understand the psyche of a farmer. Land is his mother."