A video has been doing the rounds on the microblogging site Twitter in which senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is seen refusing to accept what is being alleged to be a Rudraksha garland offered to him by the former Haridwar municipal president Satpal Brahmachari.
In the viral video first shared by the Uttarakhand unit of BJP, Rahul Gandhi is seen showing his hand to Satpal Brahmachari when the latter approached the Congress leader to offer him a garland supposedly made of Rudraksha.
The video is from Rahul Gandhi’s Thursday rally in Uttarakhand’s capital Dehradun. Rahul Gandhi had addressed the ‘Vijay Samman Rally’ organised by the Congress party in Dehradun during his first visit to the state ahead of the assembly elections. The rally was organised almost two weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had addressed a rally in Dehradun, where he had also inaugurated and laid foundation stones for various development projects in the state on December 4.
After the video was posted by BJP Uttarakhand, several BJP leaders reshared it, blasting the Congress scion, who has recently been pontificating on Hinduism, for his hypocrisy.
BJP leader Amit Malviya tweeted the video asserting: “He is the same man who hops temples just before elections, claims to be a janeudhari Hindu and of late pontificates on Hinduism.”
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra too lashed out at the Congress leader by Tweeting in Hindi, “जिन्हें है जालीदार टोपी से प्यार, उन्हें ही है रूद्राक्ष की माला से इनकार.. ” (Those who love mesh hats, are the ones who deny Rudraksha garland). He was referring to skullcaps by mesh hats.
Rahul Gandhi’s inadvertent retaliation will undoubtedly derail his recent efforts to establish himself as a sincere Janeu-dhari Hindu.
Interestingly, with the high octane Uttar Pradesh and the Uttarakhand Assembly elections approaching, the Gandhi scion has been increasingly using the Hindu-Hindutvawadi trope to attack the BJP government in the states. However, he has landed up making several goof-ups in the process.
Rahul’s rant on Hindus v/s Hindutvawadi
His recent rant on the differences between Hindus and Hindutvawadi at the ‘Mehangai Hatao’ Rally in Jaipur, Rajasthan, did not go well. Following his sermon, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Indresh Kumar on Thursday lashed out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, stating that Gandhi’s knowledge on the subject “is very poor”.
“Without Hindutva, a Hindu cannot remain a living being. By drawing a distinction between the terms Hindu and Hindutva, he has separated the body from its soul. He has very poor knowledge and concept,” Kumar told media persons in the national capital.
“I have no idea” clip of Rahul Gandhi goes viral
Prior to this, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘I have no idea’ clip had gone viral. One amusing instance in the video is from the Gokaranath Ghat where Rahul Gandhi is seen taking part in a puja. As the priest concludes the puja, a reporter from NDTV innocently asks Rahul Gandhi for what purpose did he perform the puja. The Gandhi scion then candidly answers, “I have no idea. They wanted me to come here so I came.”
‘Lord Shiva had swallowed the entire universe’: Janeu-dhari Congress scion misquotes Hindu scriptures
In another instance, the Gandhi scion while addressing his party workers through video conferencing on the occasion of the launch of Congress party’s digital campaign Jan Jagran Abhiyan had distorted a well-known story from Puranas regarding Lord Shiva. Giving an analogy from Hindu mythology, Rahul Gandhi said that Lord Shiva had swallowed the entire universe.
However, Rahul Gandhi massively misquoted Hindu scriptures when he claimed that Shiva had swallowed the universe. Because Lord Shiva had swallowed poison with the potential to destroy the entire universe, he didn’t swallow the entire universe. Shiva drinking poison that emerged during the churning of the ocean is one of the most well-known stories from Hindu texts, and it is ironic that janeu-dhari Rahul Gandhi misquoted such a well-known story.