Last Updated: December 27, 2022, 16:04 IST
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hurls candies towards media during the Bharat Jodo Yatra near Jasola Metro Station in New Delhi on Saturday. (Image: PTI/Kamal Singh)
BJP general secretary Dushyant Gautam’s sarcastic yet controversial remark came in response to Khurshid’s statement calling Gandhi a ‘superhuman’
Day after former Union minister Salman Khurshid compared Rahul Gandhi to Lord Ram, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader on Tuesday took a jibe and asked if the senior Congress leader could tell his ‘sena’ (army) what he “consumes that he doesn’t feel cold“. He went on to suggest that Congressmen should roam naked as Lord Ram’s ‘sena’ did.
BJP general secretary Dushyant Gautam’s sarcastic yet controversial remark came in response to Khurshid’s statement in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad on Monday, where he called Gandhi a “superhuman”. “While we are freezing in the cold and wearing jackets, he is going out in T-Shirts (for his Bharat Jodo Yatra). He is like a yogi doing his ‘tapasya’ with focus,” the former minister had said.
If he’s Ram’s avatar, then Rahul Gandhi should tell his ‘sena’ what he consumes that he doesn’t feel cold, why doesn’t his ‘sena’ roam without clothes…Congressmen should roam naked as Lord Ram’s ‘sena’ did: BJP’s Dushyant Gautam on S Khurshid comparing Rahul Gandhi & Lord Ram pic.twitter.com/nB9jXTJdms— ANI (@ANI) December 27, 2022
Acharya Satyendra Das, chief priest of Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya had condemned the statement of Salman Khurshid. “No one can be Lord Rama, nor can be Bharata. Rahul Gandhi can never be compared with Ram…we condemn what Salman Khurshid said,” said the chief priest.
Rahul Gandhi was at the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra, walking in a T-shirt in North India’s chilly winter. A report by NDTV quoted his party leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, as saying that when a person faced “so many attacks, the body becomes proof”.
Later, replying to the same question, Gandhi said the media kept asking him if he felt cold but never asked the same question to a farmer, a labourer, or even poor children.
His Bharat Jodo Yatra reached the national capital on Saturday, where the temperature has steadily dropped over the past two days. In fact, Delhi recorded the season’s lowest temperature on Friday.
“They (journalists) keep asking me how I do not feel cold,” he was quoted as saying by NDTV, adding, “but they do not ask the farmer, the worker, poor children, this question.” He also talked about those who could not afford essentials such as warm clothes.
“I have walked 2,800 km, but I believe that is not a big deal. Farmers walk so much every day; as do farm labourers, factory workers – all of India, in fact,” he was quoted as saying in the report, while addressing a gathering near the Red Fort.
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