CUSHIONED PROTEST

Even the most innocuous actions of Rahul Gandhi seem to invite flak, drawing media glare away from potent farmers' issues. This time, Rahul Gandhi's tractor rally is in the spotlight for the wrong reason: its cushioned seat on which Rahul was perched during a ride. None other than Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had a dig at Gandhi saying ‘‘cushioned sofas on tractors is not a protest;’’ Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, in turn, dubbed him a 'VIP kisan.' "The 'protest' launched by the Congress is a political protest by those whose vested interests are hurt by the farm bill s. Cushioned sofas on tractors is not a protest... it is 'protest tourism' to misguide our farmers, who are educated and intelligent enough to see through this façade," Puri tweeted. "He is someone who uses a sofa to sit on a tractor. A VIP kisan like him can never support a system which is meant to free small and marginal farmers from the clutches of middlemen," Irani, who had defeated Gandhi in Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, said. She said the new laws give farmers the right to sell their produce to anyone and anywhere, at the price he deems fit, but the Congress got rattled as its politics is about keeping cultivators dependent on middlemen. Irani claimed people are unable to understand why the Congress is against laws that would ensure farmers fair and quick payment for their produce.