Amar 🚩

Rahul Gandhi has asked people coming to tomorrow's rally in Delhi to buy something from local traders and street vendors. Not because the rally will cause them any loss, but because their businesses have already taken repeated hits from demonetisation and GST. Now think about the scale of this gathering. Nearly 10 lakh people are expected to come to Delhi from different parts of the country. Let's do some simple maths. If 8 lakh people are coming from outside Delhi, even assuming just 1% travel by air, that means 8,000 people spending an average of ₹10,000 on return tickets. That's ₹8 crore. Assume 50% travel by train, with an average return fare of ₹1,500. That's another ₹60 crore. If 30% travel by bus, spending an average of ₹2,000 on return journeys, that's ₹48 crore. The remaining 19% travelling by private and shared vehicles could spend another ₹23 crore on fuel and travel. That's nearly ₹139 crore on travel alone. Now consider accommodation. If just 30% of these visitors stay overnight, that's 2.4 lakh people. At two people per room and an average room tariff of ₹2,000, hotels and guest houses could earn ₹24 crore. Add ₹40 crore on food, ₹20 crore on local transport and another ₹15 crore on tea, snacks and other essentials. And here's the interesting part. Rahul Gandhi has specifically asked people to support Delhi's traders. Even if just 5% of the total crowd buys something worth ₹1,000, that's another ₹5 crore directly into local businesses. Total estimated economic activity: around ₹243 crore. Hotels, restaurants, dhabas, taxi operators, auto drivers, shopkeepers, street vendors, delivery workers and countless others stand to benefit. These are ordinary people earning their livelihood from the money circulating in the local economy. Delhi ke baniya bhaiyon ko bhi Rahul Gandhi ka shukriya ada karna chahiye. One rally by Rahul Gandhi could do more to bring customers to their shops, boost their businesses and generate employment than Modi's 12 years of economic policies have done for them.