Rahul Gandhi turned seafarer and pulled the net with local fishermen during his Kerala tour.
A couple of days after Rahul Gandhi unleashed a rare attack on the LDF government, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan cornered the Congress leader over his visit to the state to extend support to the fishermen while completely ignoring the farmers protesting in Delhi.
"Rahul Gandhi after coming to Kerala is driving a tractor and going to sea with fishermen. Rahul Gandhi has completely ignored the farmers protest happening in Delhi. Instead, he is coming to Kerala and extending his support to farmers," news agency ANI quoted Pinarayi Vijayan, as saying.
Rahul Gandhi, who represents Kerala's Wayanad in Lok Sabha, is on a visit to the state. On Wednesday, the former Congress president turned seafarer and pulled the net with local fishermen in high sea in Kollam.
Later, Rahul Gandhi addressed a gathering of fishermen at Thangassery beach. "I understand and respect what you do.I admire what you
are doing. Many times, we eat the fish but we will not understand the hard work behind and how it reached our plate," he said.
Addressing the fishermen as "brothers' throughout his talk, he said he wanted to get a sense of what many of them go through every day.
Taking a dig at the LDF government apparently over the ongoing controversy related to the alleged deep sea fishing contract, the Congress leader said he would like to see what they were going to do with the trawlers.
Rahul Gandhi's interaction with the fishermen assumes significance as the Congress-led UDF has raised allegations against the Left government in the state over an alleged deep sea fishing contract with a US-based company.
In the wake of the controversy, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had directed the officials concerned to cancel the MoU between EMCC, the US-based firm and Kerala State Inland Navigation Corporation (KSINC), a public sector undertaking and probe the circumstances under which it was signed.
(With inputs from PTI)
