Traffic jams are expected this evening in Delhi on account of Rahul Gandhi returning to the capital after a tour of Uttar Pradesh ahead of next year’s election.
At mid-day, Mr Gandhi, 45, was running at least two hours behind schedule and was expected to pull into Delhi at 3 pm on the bus that he used to travel across 140 of Uttar Pradesh’s 400 constituencies,reports NDTV.
Around 500 buses, filled with Congress supporters from in and around Delhi, are expected to join his final meeting organized on a street near Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital.
Mr Gandhi’s “Kisan Yatra” has seen him interact with farmers, whose rights he claims he is championing against a central government committed to promoting the interests of big business. The meetings, designed as casual chats with cots or khaats laid out, generated atypical headlines when farmers attending the early sessions were seen running away carrying the cots with them.
Mr Gandhi has said that he will use the next session of parliament to urge the government to waive loans for farmers and discount electricity prices.
Uttar Pradesh will vote early next year, though the dates have not yet been announced. Mr Gandhi led his party’s campaign for the national election in 2014; the Congress confronted its worst-ever result. Since then, the party has floundered in elections in key states like Assam and Kerala, with Mr Gandhi unable to reverse a trend of electoral defeats.
Akhilesh Yadav, who is three years younger than him, is asking to be re-elected as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Dalit icon Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party hopes to make a comeback after losing the state to Mr Yadav in 2012. The BJP is the only major party to have not announced its presumptive Chief Minister. The Congress has named Sheila Dikshit, who headed its Delhi government for several years.
