Rahul all praise for Meghalaya pineapples

Shillong: On a day when the general focus of the nation was on the consecration of the Ram Lalla at Ram Manir in Ayodhya, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is speaheading the Baharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, marched into Meghalaya and declared that he was the ‘soldier’ of the people in Delhi.Addressing a mammoth rally at Pahamsyiem village in Ri-Bhoi district, Rahul said, “Whatever you need from me in Delhi, I will always try and deliver to you. I want to have a loving relationship with the people of Meghalaya and that is why I have come here”.Taking an obvious dig at PM Modi, he quipped, “I am not here to tell my mann ki baat, I have come here to listen to your mann ki baat”.Narrating his immediate experience in the hill state, Rahul said, “Today when we were driving here, we stopped and tasted some of your pineapples. In my entire life, I never had such a delicious pineapple. In fact, immediately after I had it, I called up my mother and said I am bringing some of the best pineapples in the world to you”.“Why isn’t the best tasting pineapple in the world available to the entire world? Why are the farmers not benefiting from the sale of pineapples to the rest of the world,” he asked. He said it was because infrastructure has not been developed to send pineapples to the rest of the world.Rahul added that the entire population of Meghalaya could become wealthy by selling the local produce outside.“Now, the voice of Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal are being attacked. Your tradition, history, way of life is being attacked by the RSS. The RSS is strangling the Constitution, the institutional framework of India,” Rahul said.He added, “Meghalaya is not ruled from Meghalaya, it is ruled from Delhi. And as far as we are concerned, this is not acceptable. There is an illegal coal transport scam as well as the assembly dome collapse scam. The home minister himself called Meghalaya’s government the most corrupt in the nation and immediately after, he partnered with it,” Rahul said, referring to the presence of the BJP in the ruling Meghalaya Democratic Alliance.“Your languages are not included in the 8th schedule. 22 languages are included in the 8th Schedule, but Khasi and Garo have no room in that,” he said, referring to the demand for constitutional recognition of the indigenous languages of Meghalaya.