Hard selling United Progressive Alliance’s ‘game changer’ Food Security Act, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday sought to strike an emotional chord with the aam aadmi and tribals, recalling how Sonia Gandhi was in tears at not being able to cast her vote when the Bill was passed in Lok Sabha.

“I have fought for years for the Bill and will not leave until I press that button,” Rahul said, quoting his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the day she took ill in Parliament and was rushed to hospital.

“Now the Bill has been passed. For the first time in India, nobody will go hungry. Your children will not go to sleep hungry. Dalits, adivasis, people of any caste or religion will not go hungry,” he said, hard selling the Act, a measure that Congress expects would shield it from the anti-incumbency factor in next year’s general elections.

The Bill, seeking to provide cheap food grains to 82 crore people in the country, arguably the biggest programme in the world to fight hunger, was passed on August 26 after much delay.

Seeking to unseat BJP in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh after a decade, the Congress leader attacked the State Government for its “hollow” claims about development, while lauding Congress-led UPA Government for bringing crucial legislations for providing food security and land acquisition, a sensitive issue in mineral-rich Shahdol district, which has a large tribal population.

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