After pillion riding with delivery agents in Bengaluru during the Karnataka Assembly elections campaign, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a truck ride in a bid to understand the issues faced by the drivers, the party said on Tuesday.
The 52-year-old leader from Delhi to Chandigarh on Monday night donning his trademark white T-shirt. In the video shared by the Congress on Twitter, he can be seen sitting inside a truck, travelling with a driver and speaking to drivers at a dhaba.
On early Tuesday morning, Gandhi also stopped near a Gurdwara in Ambala City along the Ambala-Chandigarh national highway and paid obeisance there. He then again boarded a truck, and left towards Chandigarh.
“Leader of the people @RahulGandhi ji reached among the truck drivers to know their problems. Rahul ji travelled with them from Delhi to Chandigarh,” the Congress said in a tweet in Hindi.
“According to media reports, there are about 90 lakh truck drivers on the Indian roads. They have their own problems. Rahul ji did the work of listening to their ‘Mann Ki Baat’,” the Congress said.
Reportedly, Gandhi was on his way to Shimla to spend some time with his mother Sonia Gandhi and on the way he decided to listen to the problems of truck drivers, PTI reported, quoting sources.
Gandhi, who undertook the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, has been meeting and interacting with people from various walks of life. The party has been now projecting him as “jan nayak” or people’s leader.
The yatra has also crossed through Karnataka, where the party came with a thumping majority in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, winning 135 seats.
As part of his election campaign, Gandhi rode pillion with a Blinkit delivery agent in Bengaluru as part of the party’s outreach to gig workers. He had also also boarded a Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) bus to interact with passengers, and also spoke to women passengers in the bus.
In its party manifesto, the Congress had promised to ensure free travel in the government-run buses.
Earlier, the Congress leader had also interacted with students of d Delhi University’s Post Graduate Men’s Hostel on North Campus over lunch. However, later the university had sent a notice to him saying that the “sudden and unannounced” visit was not desirable and asked him to ‘cease and desist’ from taking any such “untoward step in future for the wellbeing, safekeeping of the hostel residents, staff, and authorities”, reported The Indian Express.