Rahul Gandhi had some words of advice for his younger sister and debutant MP, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, at a thanksgiving public meeting for the voters of Kerala’s Wayanad on Saturday.

“I know she knows this already, but I will still tell her, that in whatever decision you take, the guide should always be the people of Wayanad,” said the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and MP for five terms from three constituencies – Amethi, Wayanad and Rae Bareilly – at the public meeting held in Mukkam, Wayanad.

“There are many people who claim to have knowledge, bureaucrats, big officers but true knowledge always resides with the people.”

Rahul cited some examples in his speech to illustrate his point.

“You want to understand about rice, go to a farmer. You want to understand the market, go to a shopkeeper. You want to understand the school system, go to the children, go to the teacher, go to the headmistress,” he said.

“I am sure she is going to do that. She is going to go to all of you and listen to you, understand what is disturbing you, understand what makes you happy, understand what is frightening you.”

Rahul said Wayanad was unique as it had an official MP in Priyanka and an unofficial one in him.

“Only Wayanad has this. No other constituency has this. If you need something repeated I am always there for you,” he said.

When her turn came to speak from the dais, Priyanka who took oath as the newest MP from the Congress in the lower House of Parliament his week, said she was there to learn from the people of Wayanad.

“I am here to learn from you, understand your problems, be your voice in the Parliament and fight for your dreams and aspirations,” said Priyanka, who took oath on Thursday.

The series of landslides on the wee hours of July 30 that took place in the villages of Punjirimattam, Mundakkai, Chooralmala and Vellarimala villages leaving over 400 dead and an equal number of injured and over a hundred missing, featured prominently in the speeches of the brother-sister parliamentarian duo.

Recalling a young boy she had met during the campaign, Priyanka said: “I met this boy Mohammad Hani and girl Lavanya. Both had lost all their family members. Hani could only save his grandmother. One day I asked him if he was interested in football. I wanted to send him some football shoes. He replied he did not play much. Then I asked him what his hobbies were.”

Priyanka said she did not get an immediate reply from the boy and only after the end of the day’s campaign, she saw a text message from Hani.

“I saw he had replied, my hobby is helping people,” she said. “And, I thought to myself, here is this child who tried to save his mother for six hours from the flood, here is this child who has lost every single member of his family, and he is telling me his hobby is to help other people who are suffering. Those words of Hani are a talisman for me. I have written them in my heart. This child of Wayanad, one of you, is showing me the way ahead.”

Priyanka said the Congress’s fight to protect the India it envisioned was similar to the battle Hani had waged against a natural disaster.

“In many ways the political challenges we face today are like that landslide,” she said. “There are no rules. There is no explanation. And the behaviour of the ruling party, the behaviour of the BJP knows no democratic norms, no norms we normally would have adhered to. Institutions are destroyed. Even our basic faith in the electoral process and other institutions that held our country together wavers. And just like Hani’s fight which is for the basics, his life to go on from day to day, our fight is for the basis on which our country was built.”