Agencies/New Delhi
The ruling Congress Party reacted with fury yesterday after police arrested senior leader Rahul Gandhi, widely tipped as a future prime minister, as he took part in protests by farmers. The 40-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty and son of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi was briefly taken into custody on Wednesday night after he joined farmers protesting against the construction of a highway. Yesterday, other senior political leaders trying to join the protest, including Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were also detained by police, reports said. The arrest of Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh has further poisoned relations between the state’s firebrand leader, Chief Minister Mayawati, and the Congress, which fiercely protects its young leader’s image. “How can the state government arrest Rahul Gandhi? He is fighting for the farmers and that is not a crime,” said Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi in New Delhi. “The state government of Uttar Pradesh is greedy for farmlands. They are attacking farmers, killing people, destroying crops. We will not let this happen,” he said. Gandhi, an Uttar Pradesh MP, was detained because of fears a rally he planned to hold yesterday would turn violent, the state government said. He was escorted to the capital and freed at about 2am. Despite the public anger, Gandhi’s smiling face as he was driven away by police was captured on most newspaper front pages yesterday and the arrest might further burnish his leadership credentials and popularity. “You are not recognised as a political leader in India till you are arrested,” said Sanjay Kumar, a political analyst at the Centre for the Developing Societies think-tank in New Delhi. “Getting arrested is like receiving a medal for any politician. It is their dream to lead a popular movement, stage protests, garner mass support.” The Congress Party, which still benefits from its legacy as India’s independence-era political party, held protest rallies against Mayawati, a populist low-caste leader who has clashed before with the Gandhis. Mayawati’s government had sought to restrict access to the Bhatta and Parsaul villages on the outskirts of New Delhi where farmers and police battled at the weekend, leaving three people dead. Gandhi, who has built his image as a champion of the poor, sneaked into the area riding pillion on a motorbike in the early hours of Wednesday. Before his arrest, he spoke with farmers and denounced the local government. The farmers have been agitating for more than 100 days to demand higher compensation for land acquired as part of a project to build a 165km expressway between New Delhi and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. The Yamuna Expressway aims to reduce driving time between the two famous cities to 90 minutes from its current four hours. “I feel ashamed to call myself Indian after seeing what has happened here. The (state) government here has unleashed atrocities on its own people,” Gandhi said as he joined the farmers. NDTV reported on its website that farmers were paid a little over Rs800 ($18) per sq m for the land. That same land was sold to developers for Rs3,200 a sq m. Some is now being offered as residential plots for Rs14,000 a sq m. “The entire episode is just a cheap stunt by the Congress. They are trying to disrupt law and order and they have no right to do so. Farmers have been given compensation,” Mayawati told reporters yesterday. “Rahul Gandhi or rather the ‘Yuvraj’ (prince) of the Congress Party is indulging in dramatics,” she said.The protests in Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida are the latest in a series across the country over attempts to acquire land for industry and Congress has seized on them to muster support ahead of state elections next year. An editorial in The Hindu newspaper yesterday noted that land acquisition was often exploited by opposition parties ahead of local polls. “With just a year left for the assembly election, the opposition obviously wants to trip up Chief Minister Mayawati on the farmers issue, denting her image as a champion of social justice,” it said.