Rahul Gandhi casts his vote at Sanganakallu booth near Ballari

A mobile meeting room container was converted into a special polling booth at the Bharat Jodo Yatra camp; around 53 voters exercised their franchises

Congress leader and former President of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Rahul Gandhi, who has been leading the Bharat Jodo Yatra for the last one month, cast his vote in the AICC presidential election at Sanganakallu on the outskirts of Ballari district, where he has been staying for the last two days, on October 17, 2022.

A special polling booth was set up at the Bharat Jodo Yatra camp by converting a mobile meeting room container to facilitate eligible voters, who were walking with Mr. Gandhi, to exercise their franchise.

National Coordinator of Bharat Jodo Yatra Digvijaya Singh, AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala, Congress Communication Department head Jairam Ramesh, Lok Sabha member D.K. Suresh, All India Mahila Congress president Netta D’souza and Kanhaiya Kumar were other prominent leaders who cast their votes at the Sanganakallu polling station. As many as 53 voters exercised their franchises in the booth.

Kiran Mugabasav served as Returning Officer and Lok Sabha member Jothimani worked as the overall in-charge of polling at the Sanganakallu polling station.

Soon after exercising his franchise, Mr. Gandhi, along with Ballari Rural MLA B. Nagendra, left for a visit to a few jeans and readymade garment manufacturing units at Cowl Bazaar. He also interacted with a couple of women who stitch jeans from their home tailoring units.

He inquired them about the many issues involved in the business – the procurement of raw material, the cost of producing a jeans and the margin of profit, the number of jeans a woman stitches a day, her total monthly income and so on.  

A day before, he had a detailed discussion with jeans and readymade garment workers as part of the daily interaction with the working communities during Bharat Jodo Yatra and stressed the need for developing the Ballari jeans manufacturing cluster in a holistic way, with proper banking and financial assistance, infrastructure development, training facilities and other policy initiatives from the government, to take the cluster to global standards.