- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Indian opposition Indian National Congress’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (Unite India March) resumed on Tuesday (3) after a nine-day year-end break and it would go through northern states such as Uttar Pradesh (which it entered later in the day), Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir.
Former party president Rahul Gandhi was leading the pan-India marathon walk which kicked off in the southernmost state of Tamil Nadu last September. His sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who focuses on the Congress’s operations in Uttar Pradesh — India’s most politically significant state — welcomed the yatra in the state and called her brother, two year elder than her, a “warrior” who the country’s top politicians such as Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani could not buy.
When Vadra was asked about Gandhi’s trademark white T-shirt, which he had worn all along during the mega walk programme, even in north India where the cold is bone-chilling at the moment, the former said, “He is armoured in truth. God will keep him safe.”
In a statement, Vadra said, “Someone asked me — does your brother not feel cold? He is going around in just a T-shirt in this cold. You should protect him from the cold. At least make him wear a jacket. Then someone else asked me, ‘Aren’t you concerned about his security? He is going to Kashmir and Punjab’. So my reply is this — he is armoured in truth. God will keep him safe.”
मेरे बड़े भाई… तुम पर गर्व है ❤️
तुम एक योद्धा हो 💪 pic.twitter.com/EaDHmTY0q3
— Congress (@INCIndia) January 3, 2023
Gandhi himself has also been found joking about his light attire in north India’s severe winter and suggested he would make a video on “how to tackle winter in a T-shirt” once the yatra concludes.
Besides, the 52-year-old also questioned why the country’s media doesn’t ask such questions to farmers, labourers, and poor children of India.
Vadra also said on Tuesday that Indian industrialists such as Adani and Ambani bought politicians and media houses but not his brother and said she was proud of him.
“[Investigative] agencies were used to target him, but he was not afraid. He is a warrior. Adani ji and Ambani ji bought the biggest of politicians, the country’s public sector units and the country’s media, but they could not buy my brother,” she said.
The Congress is conducting the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ to mobilise popular support to fight the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of prime minister Narendra Modi ahead of the 2024 general elections.
