Rahul finds few aware of NREGA in Karnataka

Just when everybody thought he would zoom away in his bullet-proof BMW, Rahul Gandhi walked towards the side of the road "" two middle-aged women were working there.

Gandhi began asking them questions about their life: what they did for a living, how they survived. He learnt that they earn Rs 25 for working from 9 am to 3 pm. Their husbands have shifted to Bangalore in search of jobs, they said.

Gandhi asked through his interpreter: "Have they heard about the NREGA (National Rural employment Guarantee Act) programme?"

"No," they answered.

For Rahul Gandhi, the maiden tour of Karnataka is certainly a reality show. In the capital, he had been flagging problems with the delivery mechanism of different government programmes with anyone who could listen "" Parliament, the prime minister, young MPs in the Congress, NSUI and Youth Congress.

Now, in a reality check, he is learning what most of India already knows: that policies don't reach the people as they had been imagined and visualised.

While many of the common people were too overwhelmed by the sight of the star of the ruling party right before them to speak much, many did muster up the courage to describe to him how development hadn't reached them.

Gandhi, who is promoting the mega loan-waiver scheme in this year's Budget and NREGA programme in a big way throughout the tour, couldn't have chosen a better time to visit the Hubli-Dharwad and Gadag regions of North Karnataka.

Just a few days before his arrival, heavy unseasonal rains washed away the hopes of thousands of cotton farmers in this region.

While Gandhi spent half an hour in a closed-door meeting in Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Hulkit, ruined farmers waited outside to meet him. The area does not have irrigation facilities and is wholly dependent on rain for its crops.

Inside, Gandhi was told that the loan waiver scheme would not help local farmers much as most of them fell outside the two acre cap imposed in the Budget announcement. It should be available for all, it was demanded.

However, Gandhi didn't play to the gallery and told them bluntly: "It is not possible to give relief to everyone. A government policy is a balancing act. The government can't do something which might make the whole system collapse."

But he agreed when farmers pleaded with him that the prices for agri-products should be remunerative, instead of barely managing to make ends meet. Scientists also asked him to ensure that the latest developments in agri-science reached these places.

At regular intervals on the road from Dharwad to Ron, the local Congress managers (many of them aspirants for election tickets) arranged receptions for him.

But the youth icon of political India chose to be receptive in a different way. His tour was just not about the scheduled stops at various institutes, but more unscheduled, spontaneous visits to different places, like the Bapuji Vidyaniketan pre-primary school at Annegiri.

Children suddenly found Gandhi appearing amid them to get a first-hand report on how the infrastructure was working.

Earlier, in Hubli, he attended a programme at the Anjuman polytechnic and spoke about the importance of education: "I find so many schools in Karnataka. Students are the future of the country." Then, retaining his objective for young India, he added: "Just come forward. Come and prosper in politics. Make the country prosperous."

During the last elections, 31 out of the 45 Congress ministers lost their seats. And more than half of them belonged to North Karnataka. The region, which saw a sweep in favour of the BJP in the 2004 Assembly elections, is crucial for the Congress if it has to come back to power in May.

Rahul Gandhi has started that campaign with a different stroke: emphasis on development. Local party leaders may follow it up later with the usual elements of caste cards and tall promises.