IANS/Banda (Uttar Pradesh)
Mocking the Planning Commission’s poverty figures, the people of Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region plan to give Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Rs27 instead of a ‘chatni-roti’ meal if he again pays a visit, NGO workers and villagers said yesterday.
Gandhi visited Bundelkhand’s Banda district in September 2009 and stayed overnight at the home of Bhagwat Prajapati in Nehri village. Prajapati had died due to poverty. Gandhi sympathised with Prajapati’s family and ate ‘chatni-roti’ with them.
However, the villagers now say Gandhi would not be offered the poor man’s food any more.
Prajapati’s nephew Lala Prajapati said he did not expect Gandhi to visit their house again, but if he did then “I am going to give him Rs27 so that he can fight hunger”.
According to the Planning Commission, people whose daily consumption of goods and services exceed Rs27.20 in villages and Rs33.33 in cities are not poor.
Lala Prajapati, who is the head of the village, said: “The last time Gandhi spent the night with us, we spent Rs23 on his ‘chatni-roti’, and that too wasn’t a full meal.”
Shiv Kumar Mishra, an activist associated with NGOs Right to Food and Human Rights Law Network working in the region, said: “The Planning Commission’s yardstick for determining poverty-stricken people in villages and cities is absurd.
“While setting this yardstick, the commission’s officials seem to have ignored the money they themselves spend on their food,” said Mishra.
Leaders from the Congress were not aware of the poverty in the Bundelkhand region despite Gandhi having spent a night with Prajapati’s family, he added.
Another activist, Suresh Raikwar, said they would organise the poor in the region and give Rs27 for a day’s meal to each leader from the Congress or its allies who visit the area ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“Gandhi will be given Rs27 a day, Raj Babbar Rs12, Rasheed Masood Rs5 and Farooq Abdullah Re1, so that they can have a full meal in Bundelkhand,” said Raikwar. “We would protest if the administration officials try to arrange meals for them,” he said.
Congress leader Rasheed Masood on Thursday claimed that “one can eat well” for Rs5 in the national capital, a day after Congress spokesperson Raj Babbar said that one can have a full meal for Rs12 in Mumbai.
“You can eat well for Rs5 in the Jama Masjid area of Delhi,” Masood, a Rajya Sabha member from the Congress, told reporters here. Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said that one can have a full meal for Re1. “One can eat for Re1, if desired. It depends on the common man how much they can afford and they have to manage in that only,” Abdullah told reporters on the ongoing debate on poverty.