By IANS,
Jalandhar (Punjab) : He had cited Kalawati’s plight in parliament two months ago, and now Rahul Gandhi has got a ‘rakhi’, symbolising the brother-sister bond, from the poor farm widow from Maharashtra, the Congress MP said Wednesday.
“By the way, Kalawati has sent me a rakhi,” Gandhi told mediapersons here. He was speaking on the last day of his three-day trip to Punjab.
The reference to Kalawati came after a journalist asked him if he had found a Kalawati in Punjab also.
“You see Kalawati as a definition of a poor person. She is an individual who is fighting her odds. On those lines, I have found no Kalawati. But yes, I have seen others like her who are going through the same set of problems,” Gandhi said.
The young Congress general secretary had highlighted the plight of Kalawati of Jalkha village in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region in his Lok Sabha speech during the United Progressive Alliance government’s trust vote debate in July this year.
He had pointed out her poverty and misery as well as her resolve to fight against the odds. Her debt-ridden husband had committed suicide in December 2005, leaving her to fend for seven daughters and two sons.