NEW DELHI - Tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied under the scorching sun in India's capital New Delhi on Wednesday for an opposition-organised protest against rising food prices.
Demonstrators from states as far flung as Assam in the country's northeast arrived on buses and trains chartered by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to protest at annual food inflation running at over 17 percent.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari accused the left-of-centre Congress government, elected on a pro-poor platform, of betraying voters' trust. He then collapsed in the 41-degree-Celsius (106-degree-Fahrenheit) temperatures.

Indian media reported Gadkari, a newcomer to Indian national politics who had made the rally a show of his leadership, had fainted. High inflation, especially affecting food, is a lightning rod for political unhappiness in the country, where 370 million people live below the poverty line.
The BJP has seized on steep rises in the prices of staple foods as an issue to revitalise its moribund fortunes, especially among the poor, who have traditionally supported the Congress.
The main rally was near the Mughal-era Red Fort in the old part of the city. Thousands then marched to the city's centre, waving saffron-and-green BJP flags and causing traffic chaos.
"Vegetables, dal, sugar - they are all getting too expensive, this government must go," BJP general secretary Vijay Goyal told the crowd.
The leader of the opposition in the lower house of parliament, Sushma Swaraj led a walkout of BJP members to attend the protest, saying it was "intended to shake up and wake up the government from its slumber".
The protest came a day after the central bank hiked leading interest rates by a quarter point for a second month in a row to try to check overall inflation, which stands at 9.9 percent, a 17-month high, stoked by food prices.
The rally, which took place under the watchful gaze of police carrying bamboo sticks, was the latest in a series of food price protests following shortages after last year's monsoon, the weakest in nearly four decades.
Latest figures showed food inflation at 17.22 percent, with the rate running above 15 percent since November.
"It's very difficult for ordinary people - the price rises are hurting us," said Bhudhen Chandanath, a farmer who travelled by train from Assam, told AFP.
The opposition has blamed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, now in its second term of office, for failing to keep a check on prices since it was returned to power in elections last year.
It charges food stocks are rotting due to poor storage and says there are massive mark-ups by middlemen on farmers' produce.
The price row comes as the government seeks to keep allies in line for a key budget vote and end a scandal involving the IPL cricket tournament, which led to the resignation of high-profile junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor.