Politicians often resort to grandstanding to project nobility and exaggerate their accomplishments to woo voters and build their political capital. So when senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on a monthslong container yatra or ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ as his supporters refer to it, harked back to his past visit to Kedarnath years ago, one got the intuition that he is probably muddling facts to build his case.
In a political rally at Nanded during the container yatra, Rahul Gandhi distinguished himself from an RSS man, whom he claimed to have taken a chopper to reach the daunting heights of Kedarnath shrine.
The Gandhi scion on Thursday said that while he walked to the Kedarnath shrine, the RSS worker flew in a helicopter to reach the temple.
“I was talking about ‘Tapasya’ and ‘Tapasvi’….let me tell you something…it could be controversial, but let me speak out,” he said before recalling the incident.
Gandhi said, “Some years ago, I wanted to visit Kedarnath…we had a Chief Minister (in Uttarakhand) at that time…so when I asked him, he told me that I should go in a helicopter….but I said that I was going to the place where Lord Shiva resides. Lord Shiva is known for being one of the biggest ‘Tapasvi’, so can I not undergo a ‘Tapasya’ of walking 15 km to his abode? I would like to trek there.”
मैं केदारनाथ यात्रा पर गया था, और वहां RSS के ऐसे नेता से मिला जिनका वजन 100 Kg तक था" @RahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/VYxr1Dfc7N
— News24 (@news24tvchannel) November 11, 2022
Gandhi then elaborated on an alleged chance encounter he had with an RSS worker at the Kedarnath shrine.
“I met an RSS worker at the shrine who weighed around 100 kg. He told me that he took a helicopter to reach the top. He was along with his servant who was carrying a basket on his head…I asked him what was it…he told me that these are fruits to be offered to the Lord….he then asked me how I came to which I replied that I trekked the distance,” he said.
Gandhi further added, “We went to the temple….once we came out of the temple, he asked me what I sought from the Lord…I then asked him, what he had asked…he told me that he asked for ‘sehat’ (good health)….I did not tell what I asked…but if he had walked, he would have got ‘sehat’,” he said.
By recalling the alleged meeting, whose occurrence cannot be independently verified, Rahul Gandhi not only tried to cast himself as a virtuous Shiva devotee undertaking the penitential trekking as a mark of respect to God but also continued with his perennial attack against the RSS—the ideological fount of Hindutva that dominates the current political narrative.
However, Rahul Gandhi’s attempt to distinguish RSS and Congress jibes perfectly with his brand of politics, which involves ceaselessly vilifying the Hindu group to paper over his party’s inadequacies and shenanigans. For years, Rahul Gandhi has been targeting the RSS over Hindutva while brushing aside the minority appeasement politics that Congress continues to champion.
Perhaps, Rahul Gandhi retrofitted the anecdote he shared on Thursday in his visit to the Kedarnath shrine years ago, to lend an air of legitimacy to the probable fiction he peddled in his bid to insinuate that RSS’ commitment to the Hindu cause is shallow and superficial.
Even as Rahul Gandhi virtue-signals on undertaking ‘Tapasya’ in the form of trekking to the Kedarnath shrine, he had, however, in April 2015, when he visited the Hindu temple, said that he did not opt to fly in a helicopter to the shrine as that would be an insult of 2013 Kedarnath flood victims.
What Rahul Gandhi said after he visited the Kedarnath shrine in 2015
Speaking about why he chose to trek instead of using a helicopter, Rahul said: “I chose to walk to Kedarnath because many people lost their lives in the [June 2013] tragedy that struck Kedarnath. I felt that flying by helicopter to the shrine would insult them. They walked to the shrine and so I chose to do the same.”
It is worth noting that Gandhi’s visit to Kedarnath came on the heels of mounting criticism of the Gandhi scion, who had been on a 57-day sabbatical before having a sudden heart change and visiting the shrine that endured unprecedented floods in 2013, killing thousands and leaving infrastructure in shambles.
While Gandhi had then claimed that he was in Kedarnath to pay respects to the victims, Congress faced criticism for its shoddy work in providing relief material for the victims of the Uttarakhand floods. Trucks full of relief material that was flagged off by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi with much fanfare were stranded on their way to Uttarakhand after running out of fuel. The party drew criticism for similar other incidents that plagued their relief measures.
Changing political objectives of the Congress party dictate contrary stands of Rahul Gandhi on his visit to Kedarnath
Amid public opprobrium, Rahul Gandhi came back from a sabbatical and undertook a visit to Kedarnath, presumably to quell criticism and salvage the party’s standing among the voters. He had then claimed that he visited Kedarnath for the victims of the flood and to declare trekking to the Hindu shrine was safe once again.
Seven years on, Rahul Gandhi now gives a religious spin to his trek to the Kedarnath shrine, which was in all likelihood a PR spectacle, inventing a 100-kg RSS worker in his fecund story and claiming that he trekked as a mark of obeisance to Lord Shiva, the biggest of all ‘Tapasvis’.
Back in 2015, it was convenient and politically beneficial to express solidarity with the victims of the tragedy, so Rahul Gandhi revelled in it. In 2022, since Congress continues to face tough headwinds from the BJP, particularly because of the consolidation of Hindus, the Gandhi scion is trying to cause a dent in the saffron party’s share by dint of weaving fictional tales and attributing unverifiable motives to his 7 years old visit to the Kedarnath shrine.
