Farmer anger will test Modi as India's 'grain bowl' votes
ABC News
India’s Punjab state is casting ballots in polls seen as a barometer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity — and his party’s Hindu nationalist reach — ahead of general elections in 2024
FATEHGARH SAHIB, India -- Amandeep Kaur Dholewal rose from a traditional Indian cot and began speaking to a small gathering of men and women who sat cross-legged in a park opposite a white-domed gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs.
The 37-year-old doctor was flanked by a dozen of her supporters, mainly drawn from the protesters who last year hunkered on the edges of the Indian capital and demonstrated against now-repealed controversial farm laws.
If elected, Dholewal told the crowd, she’d fight tirelessly for the rights of farmers.
Her group of three cars then moved to another village along narrow, dusty roads that cut through thick wheat and mustard fields that stretched off into the distance. There, Dholewal repeated a similar message.