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A minor scuffle that broke out at yesterday’s Kisan Rally in front of one of the entry gates at Ramlila Maidan is perhaps emblematic of the challenges the Congress faces in returning to political centre stage. Meant only for the press, the gate was being manned by Congress workers who weren’t letting anyone but journalists enter.

This angered a bunch of farmers who had presumably travelled a distance to be at the rally. “Aap logon ne hi party kharab kar rakhi hai,” one of them shot back at the Congress worker for being refused entry.

Separate press entries are common and most political rallies have enclosures for the media, but the statement hints at people’s resentment towards the arrogance and disconnect of the Congress party.

For all its pro-poor rhetoric, it will be sometime before people start perceiving Congress as a party that’s ready to walk the talk. That will take some serious imagination on part of the Congress leadership. And Sunday’s Kisan Rally was hardly an effort in that direction.

A political cartoon in The Hindu today puts it succinctly.

Image credit: The Hindu

Indeed the Kisan Rally at Ramlila Maidan was more about political posturing than the farm crisis or the Land Bill. Why else would you have the master of ceremonies, Digvijaya Singh, remind the crowd ad nauseam that it was Rahul Gandhi who snuck into Bhatta Parsaul on a motorcycle to fight for farmers and Rahul Gandhi who went to Niyamgiri to be by the Tribals?

Rahul Gandhi, the real messiah of the poor. Rahul Gandhi, “yuvaon ki dhadkan”.

Calling the Land Bill “kala” Bill, Singh urged the crowd to stand up and clap when Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi make their entry on to the stage to “thank” them for raising “the issue”. A more appropriate thing would have been for the Congress leadership to stand up and clap for the people assembled at Ramlila Maidan for handing the party an opportunity to return back to relevance. One that its heir-apparent mostly squandered in harping on his past political stunts and Congress’ pro-poor credentials.

Compared to some of his previous political rants, though, like asking bulldozers to run over him to save a Delhi slum, the address at Kisan Rally was one of Rahul Gandhi’s more coherent speeches. He raised some important issues like the modest increase, and in some cases decrease, in minimum support price, the consent clause – which may return – and the crop loss mounting after a particularly bad spell of unseasonal rains. If only he’d stuck to the point instead of going on about his discovery of India – read a closed-door meeting with Tribals of Orissa, visit to houses of farmers and so on – it would have come close to the re-launch Rahul Gandhi’s address was being perceived as. The little talk about his visit to an Australian mine to learn about the unfair capitalist system, apart from sounding a bit far-fetched, was totally unnecessary and you saw him digress frequently to talk about his personal learnings. To give him credit, he did better than his mother, though, whose tired orations on “kisan ki awaaz” had people leaving within 15 minutes of her address. Sonia Gandhi by the end of her address was mostly speaking to empty chairs.

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The Congress’ ineptitude in connecting with the masses and failure to rally people on such an evocative issue as the Land Bill aside, it would be dangerous for the Centre to dub the Kisan rally merely as #PappuFarce, like Twitter was quick to do. The rally did see a sizeable congregation of farmers, possibly affiliated to the Congress, from across states like Punjab, Haryana, Telangana, Rajasthan and Manipur.

Haryana and Rajasthan, both ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had a vocal contingent of farmers expressing their dissatisfaction with BJP rule. “The hail has completely destroyed our crops, but there’s no assurance from the BJP on anything,” says one farmer from Hanumangarh in Rajasthan. Another says that the BJP rule in Rajasthan has been a complete fail. “There’s no manure or fertilisers available, no water when we need to irrigate our fields, electricity bills have been doubled. Farmers are suffering in Rajasthan.”

Two farmers who’d made their way to Delhi from Rohtak in Haryana quite simply say Modi’s promises are turning out to be false. They voted for him in Lok Sabha but say nothing has changed. Things are looking worse now with the crop failure and we have no assurance, they assert. While they thought it would have been better for the Congress leadership to head to the states and address the crisis-hit farmers, they agreed that having the rally in Delhi will help them reach out to the government better.

The Congress may be lending its support to farmers’ for the sake of optics, but anger at the government’s apathy was very palpable. The Centre would do well to take note of it, even as the public broadcaster decided the rally was not worthy of airtime. DD News’ official YouTube channel has the complete 54-minute footage of the Prime Minister’s address to Members of Parliament and just a 0:43 second clip of Sonia Gandhi speaking at the Kisan Rally. The front pages of most English dailies, thankfully, have the rally as the lead news today, giving the farmers’ predicament the attention it deserves.