Bharat Jodo Yatra has been a revelation for both Congress and the general public at large. Like always, Congress is deluded into believing that it has finally managed to package Rahul Gandhi in a saleable way, perhaps for the 786th time. For the public, on the other hand, it has reaffirmed the time-honoured notion that if the product is inherently flawed, no amount of marketing gimmicks and elaborate campaigns can help salvage it.
From branding him as a Tapasvi (ascetic) with emphasis on portraying him as a practising Hindu to projecting him as a philosopher with profound knowledge about reality, existence, governance, and society, inter alia, Congress has left no stone unturned to tout its leader as a superman, who has this ‘rare ability’ to fight off the biting cold with just a t-shirt, and therefore, deserving of becoming the Prime Minister.
But unfortunately for them, Rahul Gandhi has, time and again, thrown the monkey wrench on their elaborate plans to project him as the leader who has finally come of age and is ready to take the reins of the country’s highest office. He has revealed, advertently or inadvertently, that he continues to remain a politician who is prone to faux-passes, bloopers and goof-ups.
While one assumes that decades in public life and persistent electoral failures would have wised up Rahul Gandhi a bit, his recent utterances during the Congress party’s boondoggle project ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ betray that his march to insanity is irreversible and there has been no learning from innumerable gaffes against his name, each one better than the previous.
Though the Congress party struggles to articulate the aims and objectives of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi, through his absurd remarks, has conveyed to the general public the direction in which they should not be looking for a leader.
Here’s a list of Rahul Gandhi’s gems from the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra, which can be described as an assault on our common sense, to say the least.
‘Those who are afraid of winter wear sweaters’
Speaking to reporters earlier last year, Rahul Gandhi said those who wear sweaters are afraid of cold. His statement was in respect to a media query over why is he in a T-shirt during the Bharat Jodo Yatra even as a cold wave swept northern India.
“I do not wear a sweater because I am not scared of cold. I will wear a sweater once I start feeling cold,” Rahul Gandhi said, alluding that people who wear sweaters are afraid of facing the cold and not because sweaters keep people warm in winter and help them protect against the cold, fevers and diseases.
Rahul Gandhi says he has killed Rahul Gandhi and the person we see is not Rahul Gandhi
Another gem Rahul Gandhi came up with was when he claimed that he had killed Rahul Gandhi and the person we all are seeing is not Rahul Gandhi.
The stunning proclamation was made during a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (BJY) press conference on January 8 at Samana, Haryana, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that he had killed ‘Rahul Gandhi’ and the person we see is not ‘Rahul Gandhi’. During the QA session at the press conference, TV journalist Pradeep asked him if he believed that BJY helped in changing his image. In reply to his query, Gandhi said he had “killed” Rahul Gandhi.
“Rahul Gandhi is in your head. I have killed him. He does not exist anymore. He is not in my mind. He is gone. Gone. The person you are seeing is not Rahul Gandhi. You are seeing him. You did not understand. Read Hindu Dharma a little. Read about Shiv Ji. You will understand. Do not get confused. Do not get confused. Rahul Gandhi is in your head. He does not exist in my head,” the Gandhi scion rambled, appearing more confused than he accused others of being.
If Rahul Gandhi has killed himself and if there is no Rahul Gandhi, Congress should stop continue projecting him as the PM candidate. A man who does not exist cannot definitely be the Prime Minister of the country. It will save Congress a whole lot of embarrassment, money, and effort.
‘Rahul Gandhi does not exist, he is in your head’
This was not the first time that Gandhi had resorted to meaningless answers when asked about the objectives of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. On November 29, when a journalist asked the Wayanad MP what perspective he was gaining from ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, he cunningly deflected answering it by saying there is no Rahul Gandhi.
“I let go of Rahul Gandhi years ago. Rahul Gandhi is on your mind, not mine. Understand. Try and understand. (on hearing applause) See, someone is clapping. Do you understand? One person has understood. This is the philosophy of your country. Understand it, it will be good for you,” Rahul Gandhi said in response to a question.
‘When Arjun was focusing on the eye of the fish, did he reveal about his future course of action?’
On Sunday (January 8), Congress scion Rahul Gandhi drew bizarre analogies between his ambitious ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and the Swayamvar of Draupadi from the Hindu epic ‘Mahabharata.’
In a video shared very proudly by the official Twitter handle of the Congress party, he was heard saying, “When Arjuna was focusing on the eye of the fish, did he announce his future course of action to everyone?”
Rahul Gandhi made the remarks upon being asked about his plans, following the conclusion of his political foot pilgrimage. He had compared himself to Arjuna and erroneously claimed that the warrior did not know about the fruits of his actions (the task to hit the eye of a fish).
“The story of Arjuna (not announcing his plans in advance) has a profound meaning. It is also mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita. You focus on the work and do not think about the results. This is the thinking behind the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” he claimed.
Mr Gandhi wants us to believe that Arjun had no idea what the future held for him, even though the king had announced that the one who would be able to pierce the eye of the moving fish would stand eligible to marry his daughter, Draupadi. Gandhi’s ignorance of Mahabharata is not surprising, but his assumption that others share his ignorance of the Hindu epic is staggering. As a result, his bizarre analogy only managed to impress staunch Congress supporters, with others left scratching their heads and struggling to make sense of what he said.
Rahul Gandhi’s martial arts lesson to Congress leaders to ‘physically’ ward off RSS and BJP
If this was not enough, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had everyone in splits after he demonstrated martial arts and ‘the energy absorption’ technique he employs to ward off the purported ‘physical’ attacks by the BJP and RSS.
While one would have assumed that Rahul Gandhi was metaphorically speaking when he spoke about employing techniques to stave off attacks by RSS and BJP, all doubts were dispelled when he proceeded to provide a demo on how he tackled such situations.
During the Maharashtra leg of the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the Congress scion was seen chitchatting with other leaders and claiming, “Like the RSS attacks you and pours all their energy into it. So, how will you take that energy and make it your own? I will demonstrate the principle.”
How do you use the power of those who is fighting you? pic.twitter.com/R1lEoLwsYE
— Anshuman Sail (@AnshumanSail) November 26, 2022
And Congress leaders, as gullible as they have been, instantly lapped up the ‘technique’ Rahul Gandhi was talking about to fight off physical attacks by the BJP and RSS.
The self-proclaimed martial arts expert politician then compelled a Congress leader to sit on his knees and then proceeded to push him from the front. When the said leader failed to maintain his balance, Rahul Gandhi suggested taking the opponent’s energy instead (referring to the BJP).
“Now I am going to tell him how to position himself to take the energy from the other person? So, open your legs out and sit down,” he continued. Rahul Gandhi then asked the leader to spread his legs and shift the body weight towards the attacker, hold his hand and push up. Three other Congress leaders then joined in to push the Congress leader sitting on the floor to demonstrate how despite so many people ‘pushing’ the person sitting on the floor, that man can ‘push back’ and maintain the balance by using their ‘energy’ against them.
“For some strange reason, I could not feel the power at all…Because you took it all. That’s what I do with the BJP,” the grand strategy of the Congress scion was applauded by other leaders.
Even as Rahul Gandhi proclaimed that he fought RSS and BJP with the martial art technique, he did not reveal where such a fight took place and why there was no video of the confrontation, something which would have prepared Congress leaders better in understanding how to ‘absorb’ opponent’s energy and turn it against them. Curiously, no journalists, including those sympathetic to Congress, knew about the Rahul vs RSS physical confrontation and felt betrayed that their leader did not provide them with a heads-up of such an encounter.
‘Dogs, cows, buffaloes, and pigs joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra’
Rahul Gandhi’s speech made on Saturday during Bharat Jodo Yatra had the internet into a tizzy after he said ‘dogs, cows, buffaloes, and pigs attended the Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
Speaking at a public rally in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi said, “I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, but in this campaign(BJY), dogs participated, but no one killed them. Cows, buffaloes, and pigs also joined in, I saw them. All animals came. This Yatra is like our India. There is no hatred or violence here.”
#WATCH | In Bharat Jodo Yatra, dogs also came but no one harmed them. Cow, buffaloes, pigs, all animals came. This Yatra is like our India, no hatred, no violence: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Delhi pic.twitter.com/2eGIujo8jJ
— ANI (@ANI) December 24, 2022
The speech instantly went viral on social media, leaving many netizens in splits over the claims made by the former Congress President. While Rahul Gandhi’s comment on animals joining Bharat Jodo Yatra appeared literal in nature, many others conjectured if the Gandhi scion was using cryptic language to insinuate the participation of some people in the container Yatra.
Pujaris vs Tapasvis gibberish
Rahul Gandhi recently went on an unhinged rant against Pooja (Hindu form of worship) while trying to promote his latest avatar of Tapasvi (ascetic).
The contentious remarks during the Haryana leg of his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’. While speaking to the media in Samana near Kurukshetra, Rahul Gandhi claimed that BJP is a party of ‘Pooja’ while Congress is a party of ‘Tapasya.‘
Upon realising that he may have upset his Hindu voters by taking potshots at their religious practice, Rahul Gandhi tried to undo the damage but ended up causing more harm to his party. “There are two types of Pooja – the normal one and the one done by RSS,” Rahul brazened it out.
“RSS wants people to forcibly worship them(do their Pooja). The response to such a form of worship can only be tapasya,” Rahul said. Rahul Gandhi also claimed that lakhs of people are doing ‘tapasya‘, along with Congress, to counter the effects of the ‘pooja’ of BJP and RSS.
“BJP says that there should be no respect for tapasya but only for those who do our pooja,” he said, adding that the saffron party attacked the poor men’s tapasya through its policies such as demonetisation, GST, and the farm laws.
He further alleged that PM Modi is afraid of the tapasya of journalists and that he is therefore afraid of press conferences. “Congress is an organisation of tapasya, BJP is an organisation of pooja,” Rahul Gandhi continued.
Rahul Gandhi has presided over cringe-inducing gems during his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra. Whether it is claiming that ‘Rahul Gandhi is dead and the person you are seeing is not Rahul Gandhi’ to ‘Pigs joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the Gandhi scion is a gift that keeps giving, keeping people amused with his ‘profound’ and ‘out of the box’ takes on matters, and providing them with a distraction in their otherwise mundane daily life.
