Every day I go on a diet, which lasts exactly 6 hours, longer than the 5 hours ‘fast’ Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was supposed to undertake for ‘communal harmony’. The fast, which was to start at 11 am (and end at 4 pm) started a little late, since the Rahul Gandhi reached the venue at around 1 pm. Well, you can’t blame him. Delhi traffic gets the best of us and then combine it with early morning thunder leaving Delhi streets flooded with traffic jams, it is a miracle Gandhi reached the venue before the time window for fast came to an end.
Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi arrives at Rajghat, where the Congress party is staging a protest and hunger strike over atrocities on Dalits. pic.twitter.com/2rQQqzN58Y
— ANI (@ANI) April 9, 2018
Meanwhile, BJP leaders have accused Congress leaders of feasting just before going on fast, because one needs the energy to stay hungry for full six hours.
Delhi BJP leader Harish Khurana claims Congress leaders were earlier today seen eating at restaurant in Delhi before sitting on a protest and observing fast at Rajghat over atrocities on Dalits. (In pic, Congress leader AS Lovely) pic.twitter.com/OWsIWmwPKP
— ANI (@ANI) April 9, 2018
Congress leaders, obviously, were mocked for their seriousness ‘symbolic’ fast.
उपवास के लिए लेट पहुंचने में राहुल गांधी का दोष नहीं. रेस्टोरेंट ने छोले भटूरे पड़ोसने में लेट कर दिया ? pic.twitter.com/idyIeoNqnf
— Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) April 9, 2018
Amusingly, AS Lovely, one of the fasting leaders, defended the feast by claiming how it was at 8 am, 3 hours before the fast was to begin.
Photograph is of before 8 am, this is symbolic fast from 10.30 am to 4.30pm,it is not indefinite hunger strike.This is what is wrong with these(BJP) ppl,instead of properly running the country,they concentrate on what we eat:AS Lovely,Congress on picture of him eating before fast pic.twitter.com/9if3ohigAA
— ANI (@ANI) April 9, 2018
How lovely!
However, irony led a murderous mob when Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, both accused of engineering anti-Sikh riots in 1984 following Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, were spotted at Rajghat to ‘fast for communal harmony’. However, they were both allegedly asked to leave the venue.
Sources say JD Tytler & Sajjan Kumar were asked to leave Rajghat, where the Congress party is staging a protest and hunger strike over atrocities on Dalits. #Delhi pic.twitter.com/HDlodke0GJ
— ANI (@ANI) April 9, 2018
Tytler and Kumar’s presence got a lot of flak in the protest which talks about ‘communal harmony’.
What we are seeing in Rajghat is no fast, it is only a FARCE!
Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who butchered thousands of Sikhs in 1984 attending a farcical “fast” for unity and harmony! What a joke!
— Harsimrat Kaur Badal (@HarsimratBadal_) April 9, 2018
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President Ajay Maken, who is also seen in above picture allegedly feasting before the ‘fast’, clarified that they weren’t really asked to leave but the enclosure where they were was only for certain office-bearers of the party.
Perhaps this is how Congress and Rahul Gandhi is sending out their message to us. That their sumptuous breakfast before going on a ‘symbolic’ fast is how their talks about removing hunger, poverty and malnutrition are also symbolic. That, having people who allegedly led violent mobs, identifying and killing Sikhs, be part of a protest on ‘communal harmony’ is their way of showing how it really doesn’t matter to them. That person could and should be manipulated by ‘symbolism’ if it brings back to power.
All this talks about food has made me hungry. On that note, I’m off to make chhole-chawal for dinner. My diet, just like Congress leaders’ fast, is symbolic.