NEW DELHI: India’s Rahul Gandhi led a large farmers rally on Sunday that focused rural anger toward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies, in the first public appearance in months for the elusive scion of the country’s most famous political family.

Congress leader Gandhi spoke to thousands of villagers brought to New Delhi on special trains and buses, vowing to block Modi’s controversial plan to make it easier for business to forcibly acquire farm land.

The opposition leader accused Modi of being beholden to big business at the expense of struggling farmers during the protest in New Delhi against the government’s contentious land bill.

“Modiji wants to give your land to industrialist friends,” said a hoarse-voiced Gandhi, addressing some 70,000 farmers in the large ‘Ram Lila’ ground.

“The Modi government wants to weaken farmers to such an extent that they are rendered helpless and forced to sell their land,” he told the crowd.

Dressed in all white and waving Congress party flags, thousands of farmers poured into Delhi for the rally against the bill, which makes it easier for businesses to purchase farmland.

Anger at the land bill, bad weather and low commodity prices have dented Modi’s popularity in the countryside, his first major political challenge since taking office last year.

Gandhi, 44, landed in India on Friday after a mysterious eight-week foreign break that led to rebellious grumbling from party colleagues that the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister was a part-timer with dulled political instincts.

The rally was Gandhi’s attempt to regain momentum and put the government on the defensive about its support for farmers suffering after bad weather damaged crop.

Modi’s government is determined to push through amendments to a land acquisition law passed when the Gandhis were last in power, saying the law has made it almost impossible to buy land for industrial development.

Flanked on stage by his mother, party president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Gandhi said Modi was undemocratic in using a decree to implement the new land rules. The government must now pass the amendments in parliament, which convenes on Monday.

“We are not against the land acquisition, but this should happen with the consent of farmers at a good price” said Muktar Singh, a 66-year old farmer who came from Jhajjar district of Haryana, about 65 km away from the capital city.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party hit back, with Ravi Shankar Prasad, communication and telecom minister at the Modi-led government, saying the new land rules were pro-poor.

The government hopes the opposition Congress Party will agree to a middle path, but the Gandhis vowed on Sunday to stand their ground, setting the stage for a bruising showdown in Parliament that could slow the passage of a major tax reform bill also slated for this session.

Shortly before the protest was set to start, Modi launched a staunch defense of his government’s initiatives to help India’s tens of millions of poor, including lowering high inflation.

“This is a government for the poor. We are dedicated to the poor,” he told a meeting of lawmakers from his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) without referring to the land bill.

“Instead, anything we say is ripped and twisted by the opposition. Can’t we speak? Is this a crime (that) we are doing?”

After sweeping to power at last year’s elections promising to reform the economy, Modi says the bill is needed to improve the efficiency of land purchases for factories, industrial corridors and other development projects.But anger has been mounting in rural areas over the move, seen as favouring big business and compounding the misery of debt-laden farmers, who flocked to Modi’s BJP at the national election. Many have already suffered extensive unseasonal rain damage to winter crops.

Congress mobilised thousands of supporters for the nationally televised protest, seen as a chance for the 44-year-old Gandhi to relaunch himself as a strong head of the party and eventually replace his mother.