Sonia Gandhi focuses on farmers in Punjab rally

SAMRALA: The road leading to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's rally in Samrala was lined with more posters of Lokpal crusader Anna Hazare than Congress leaders in the state, highlighting one of the challenges the party faces in the upcoming polls. Gandhi, however, drew a hearty applause when she made a raft of promises in her 13-minute speech.

"We will provide farmers with less than four-acre landholdings 100% subsidised drip irrigation facility. A Rs 100-crore special fund will be created to help small farmers in state. Punjab Agriculture University will get Rs 100 crore every year for R&D. Diary Udyog production will be doubled," the Congress party chief said, adding, "We don't make hollow promises."

While Gandhi focused on farmers, promising sops to agri scientists as well in the state, the party's state unit chief and former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh lashed out at the incumbent Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance. "There are more than 50,000 FIRs against our workers. We will form a commission to probe this," he said, before turning to other issues. He said there were two crore unemployed youth in the state, just two weeks after he had said at a press conference that Punjab had 47 lakh unemployed youth.

Sardar Lakhbir Singh Lakha, the party's Dalit candidate from the Payal constituency, also spoke on the occasion, refuting charges of the Akali Dal that money had changed hands during allocation of Congress party's tickets. "I am a Dalit candidate with no money and hardly any land. Still, I have been awarded the ticket. All thanks to Rahulji. Do you think I can pay a single penny to get the ticket?" the youth leader asked.

The reference to the Nehru-Gandhi scion could be found on Hazare's posters as well. The posters, with slogans in Punjabi and Hindi supporting a stronger Lokpal, had a request written at the bottom exhorting all supporters of Hazare's campaign to head for Rahul Gandhi's rally, scheduled at Jalandhar's Dana Mandi on Wednesday. Team Anna, which arrived in Punjab on Tuesday, started its campaign from Amritsar after paying obeisance at Harmandir Sahib.