New Delhi: GANDHI's hosted a lunch for women labourers from Sonipat district at their Delhi residence on July 29, 2023. 30-odd women labourers from Madina village visited Smt. Sonia Gandhi’s home in Delhi on July 14, following a remark made by Shri Rahul Gandhi when he visited their village. The Congress leader had paid a visit to Madina village and met farmers and labourers. During his visit, when asked, “Dilli dekhi hai, dikha doon? (Have you seen Delhi? Should I show you?)”, the women were elated and then invited to the national capital.

During the conversation over lunch, the women spoke about their suffering due to skyrocketing prices of daily necessities like fertilisers, gas cylinders, electricity and diesel, onions and tomatoes among other things. “Things have become so expensive now. A common person with responsibilities can’t buy tomatoes at Rs. 200 per kilo,” one of the women said.

Another woman, speaking about the struggles while farming, said: “We cannot even buy paddy even after working so hard. We do not even get any compensation when farms are flooded.” She also raised the issue of the implementation of the Goods and Services tax, which, according to her, leads to an increase in the price of motors.

However, some light banter was also on display during lunch when one of the women asked former Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi to get Rahul married, to which Sonia ji replied: “You find a girl for him.”

The women also danced with Smt. Sonia Gandhi, besides presenting her with some local pure ghee and lassi. One of the women had said that what surprised them was that Shri Rahul Gandhi did not speak about politics or the BJP or Prime Minister. “We saw him on two occasions and not once did he speak about politics. Of course, we had to speak about inflation and discuss how unemployment has become rampant, but apart from that and tomatoes, he only discussed how our lives were,” said one of the labourers.