Sun. Feb 16th, 2025

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday hosted lunch for a vegetable vendor, Rameshwar, at his Delhi residence. Images from the luncheon became viral on social media. Rahul Gandhi, himself, also shared the images on microblogging site ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter.

Rahul Gandhi in his post wrote, “Rameshwar ji is a lively person! In him, a glimpse of the affable nature of crores of Indians can be seen. Those who move ahead with a smile even in adverse circumstances are truly ‘Bharat Bhagya Vidhaata’”.

See the post here

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also shared images from the luncheon on her Twitter account. “Rameshwar ji had expressed his desire to meet the people’s hero. They met up,” the Congress leader said.

See the post here

Rameshwar became famous when in July a video of his surfaced of the vegetable vendor talking to news media outlet Lallantop broke down about how the rising inflation has hurt his living. He had told Lallantop, “The prices of tomatoes are beyond my capacity. I am lacking the necessary funds to make the purchase.”

“…We are not even sure at what price we will be able to sell it. If they get damp in the rain or something happens to the stock, we end up making a loss,” Rameshwar added, who had visited the Azadpur Mandi market in the national capital with his son to procure tomatoes for his retail store, but ended up with an empty handcart.

The video had reached Congress leader and MP from Wayanad Rahul Gandhi, who  visited Azadpur Mandi to take stock of the situation. Following this Rameshwar had reportedly wanted to meet Gandhi in person. 

Tomato prices in India has risen sharply in past couple of months. Wholesale traders said that tomato prices can also go up to 300 per kilogram in the coming days, according to a report published by the news agency PTI.

In its bid to give further relief to consumers, the central government on Monday said it has directed its marketing agencies to sell tomatoes at 50 per kg instead of 70 starting Tuesday.

The rise in prices of essential commodities like tomato, onions, beans, carrots, ginger, and chillies is causing dissatisfaction among voters ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Retail inflation in July breached the upper-end of the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerance level for the first time in five months due to surging food costs, reinforcing the central bank’s concern over uneven monsoon rains affecting crop production.

The consumer price index rose to a 15-month high of 7.44% from a year earlier, according to government data Monday. That’s faster than a median forecast for a 6.5% gain in a Bloomberg survey of economists, and a revised reading of 4.87% in June.

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