Woman ragpicker shares her woes with Rahul Gandhi in MP town during his Bharat Jodo Yatra
Barwaha(PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi interacted with a woman ragpicker as his Bharat Jodo Yatra passed through a town in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday, during which she told him about the issues she and her family faced, including lack of basic amenities like electricity and water.
The foot march led by Gandhi entered the fourth day of its Madhya Pradesh leg on Saturday.
After an overnight halt, the yatra began from Mortakka in Khandwa district in the morning. When it was passing through Barwaha town in Khargone, Gandhi met 45-year-old ragpicker Shannu and her family members, who were part of the crowd standing along the road.
"We are poor and make a living through ragpicking at different places. We live in a hut, which doesn't even have electricity and water," she told Gandhi during their interaction.
The woman and her family members said that their voice was not being heard. "My children can't even go to school," she said.
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra along with her husband Robert Vadra and son Raihan participated in the yatra for the third consecutive day. The yatra will reach Mhow, the birthplace of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, this evening.
A Congress leader said that a public meeting has been organised in Mhow to mark the Constitution Day on Saturday, which will be addressed by Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Both the leaders will also pay homage at the memorial built at Dr Ambedkar's birthplace.
The Gandhi-led yatra, which began from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7, entered the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh on November 23 in Burhanpur district from neighbouring Maharashtra.
As per the programme announced by the Congress, the yatra will cover a distance of 380 kms in the Malwa-Nimar region of western Madhya Pradesh within 12 days, before it enters Rajasthan on December 4.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
