Indira Chowk in Moradabad City suddenly witnessed a crowd surge as word spread that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had joined Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra rally.

Priyanka, in turn, addressed the gathering — which party sources said swelled to one lakh in a short time — as “sasuralwalon” (in-laws), Moradabad being the hometown of her husband Robert Vadra.

She urged them to stop getting carried away by the BJP government’s self-publicity and judge its performance by the changes they have witnessed in their own lives.

“Sasuralwalon, yahan akar bahut khushi hui hai (My in-laws, I’m delighted to be here),” she began, speaking from atop Rahul’s open jeep.

“Judge the development that has happened in the light of your own experiences. Judge the government’s performance on the basis of the changes to your lives. See what you got in these 5-10 years. There will be development when you vote for someone on the basis of your own experiences and question the government for your growing problems.”

As the crowd cheered, Priyanka went on: “Think before casting your vote. The Congress has programmes for growth. It has given results in the past too. You should understand this from your own experience.

“I came here in 2022 and asked whether you were getting jobs. Has anything changed since then? There were Assembly elections at the time. You voted for the BJP and Yogiji (chief minister Adityanath). I want to ask you whether or not your real problems — prices, unemployment, paper leaks in every (recruitment) examination — are still continuing.”

The crowd chorused that the problems were continuing.

“I want to know what you are thinking now. Did you think about your development?” Priyanka asked.

“There were big brass factories here but they are not growing now. The government has stopped giving you (brass producers) assistance. They take GST from you and your production is reduced to half. Did the problems decrease or increase?”

Some people replied: “They have increased.”

“I had asked at that time whether you have jobs,” she continued. “I am asking again, do you have employment? You run every morning to get recruited to the police or the army. Your parents pay for your coaching. Then you pay fees to write an exam. Then what happens?

“Do you know that 28 lakh youths from Uttar Pradesh took the police recruitment exam? This means four or five youths from each village of the state appeared in the exam. They had hope.

“They didn’t want anything free, they had studied and practised (physical exercises) hard to clear the test but the paper was leaked. We, on the other hand, had promised in 2022 that the Congress would prepare a job calendar and set up a commission to prevent paper leaks (if voted to power in the state).

“Now I want to say something directly. You are again going to vote. You can see that unemployment is increasing while the BJP is voted to power again and again at the Centre and in the state. Your hardships are increasing.

“The farmers were agitated two years ago, they are agitated again today. They were on dharna then and they are on dharna now. Nobody was there to listen to them, and nobody is there to listen to them.”

Priyanka said Rahul had covered 4,000km during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra “to keep the country intact and to ask people to get united for the sake of development”.

Rahul invited a young man, who introduced himself as Ayush Kaushik, to climb onto the jeep and used him as a prop to explain “the situation in the country”.

“I ask Ayush to look left, right, up and down. As he is busy following my suggestion, someone is picking money from his pocket. Then someone else will bully him if he protests the theft,” Rahul said.

“Similarly (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji keeps diverting your attention from the real issues and then the big businessmen snatch money from you. Then there is home minister Amit Shah, who will set the ED (Enforcement Directorate) and the CBI on you if you react against whatever happened to you.”

Rahul’s Nyay Yatra resumed from Moradabad after a two-day break, moving to Agra via Amroha, Bulandshahr and Sambhal.

Samajwadi Party sources said party president Akhilesh Yadav might join the Yatra on Sunday.

Rahul will again take a break from February 26 to March 1, when the Congress and its allies will hold meetings in Delhi to reach an understanding on seat-sharing for the Lok Sabha elections.