Embarking on a journey aimed at turning around the Congress’ fortunes in poll-bound Gujarat, Rahul Gandhi on Monday toured nearly 200 km in the Saurashtra region to reach out to youth, women and farmers.

Kickstarting the first of his four-leg ‘Navsarjan Yatra’, the Congress Vice-President lashed out at the government for the plight of farmers. “His [that of a farmer] land is taken away when a business fancies it,” Gandhi said at a public meeting at Khambhaliya, near Jamnagar, on Monday.

After arriving at the Mithapur airstrip on Monday morning, Rahul went to the Dwarka temple of Lord Krishna on the West coast where he was shown the family tree of the Nehru-Gandhi family, bearing the signatures of his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi. Rahul too signed on the family tree as a mark of his visit.

The Congress’ election in-charge of Gujarat Ashok Gehlot, and the party’s State chief Bharatsinh Solanki accompanied Rahul on the tour.

The Congress leader traversed villages covering groundnut and cotton fields in the districts of Devbhoomi Dwarka, Porbandar and Jamnagar.

While people flocked to Rahul’s convoy and meeting venues, the Congress Vice-President joined the people by jumping onto a bullock-cart to reach a meeting venue at Hanjadapar village.

Before concluding the first day of the three-day tour, Gandhi held meetings with traders in Jamnagar district to get a sense of the prevailing issues mainly in the aftermath of demonetisation and the roll-out of the GST.