Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday interacted with autorickshaw drivers, gig workers, and sanitary workers in Hyderabad and promised to enact a law in Telangana in lines with Rajasthan’s Gig Workers Act, 2023, if the party is voted to power in the upcoming polls.
He was interacting with the gig workers in Jubilee Hills constituency, where former India men’s cricket team captain Mohammad Azharuddin is contesting on a Congress ticket.
The Congress MP from Kerala’s Wayanad said the Congress’s manifesto has promised to set up a welfare board and provide Rs 12,000 financial assistance for auto-rickshaw drivers, as well as implement a single permit policy and settle pending traffic challans on a 50 per cent discount.
He promised insurance and a welfare board for gig workers as well, and said the city’s civic sanitation workers would be regularised and given timely salary increments.
Later, he donned the auto-rickshaw driver uniform and also took a ride in an autorickshaw in the city.
Along with Rahul Gandhi, his sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also campaigned in the state, which goes to polls tomorrow. Both of them also participated in a roadshow in Malkajgiri. Campaigning for the Telangana elections ended at 5 PM.
Gandhi also addressed an election rally at Nampally in Hyderabad, where he alleged that the RSS, Modi and “hardliners” have spread hatred in the entire country.
He said Congress coined a slogan of “opening a ‘mohabbat ki dukaan’ (shop of love) in the ‘nafrat ke bazaar’ (market of hate)” during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, adding that as he fights Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 24 cases have been filed against him in various states — and the courts summon him from time to time.
“First time, for defamation, I got two years’ punishment. My Lok Sabha membership was cancelled. My government house was taken away. I said I don’t want it. My home is in the hearts of the crores of poor people in the country,” he said.
“The fight is ideological and I cannot compromise on it,” Gandhi said.
The Congress party, which is hoping to come to power in Telangana, ended its poll campaign for the November 30 assembly elections in the state with the siblings attacking the ruling BRS and BJP, alleging that the parties have a “tacit understanding” between themselves.
On October 18, Rahul and Priyanka had offered prayers at the historic Ramappa Temple in Mulugu district before kickstarting the Congress campaign and launching a bus tour ‘Vijayabheri Yatra’.