If one T-shirt from the Bharat Jodo Yatra had the BJP worked up on Friday, another seemed to have got it all shy on Saturday.
The ruling party, which had mocked Rahul Gandhi for allegedly wearing a Rs 41,000 Burberry tee on the Yatra, zipped its lips on a T-shirt that carried the message: “I am walking for job.”
Worn by several young participants who were photographed with Rahul, the shirt drove home one of the central themes of the Yatra, offering little opportunity for obfuscation that the brouhaha over the Congress leader’s attire seemed aimed at creating.
On Friday, the BJP had run a social media campaign on Rahul’s T-shirt and its purported price while home minister Amit Shah on Saturday scoffed at a rally in Rajasthan that “Rahul Baba videshi T-shirt pahan kar Bharat jodne nikle hain (Rahul has set out to unite India wearing a foreign T-shirt).”
The Congress asked the BJP not to engage in irrelevant talk and asserted that the country hadn’t forgotten Narendra Modi’s “Rs 10-lakh suit”. It dared the ruling party to debate the substantive issues the Yatra had raised, such as economic inequality and social polarisation.
However, the BJP again kicked up dust on Saturday over a video of a conversation between Rahul and a Christian religious delegation.
BJP social media chief Amit Malviya tweeted: “If meeting a controversial pastor, who is known for his visceral disdain for the majority community and their beliefs, (is) Rahul Gandhi’s idea of ‘Bharat Jodo; then this Yatra is nothing but a sham. How can indulging faith supremacists serve the larger society and bring cohesion?”
Rahul has not been known to endorse the controversial views expressed in the past by the pastor referred to. Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said that dialogue has been the essence of the Indian tradition, which the BJP doesn’t understand.
Malviya put out another tweet: “It is the fourth day of Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra. Someone who hops temples before elections, didn’t have a single visit to a Hindu temple or institution in his itinerary, but had all the time for controversial Hindu hate mongers. Does Rahul Gandhi’s idea of India have no place for Hindus?”
The Yatra had begun with a visit to the Vivekananda Memorial and Gandhi mandapam in Kanyakumari, but the Congress desisted from a debate on whether these two great Indians did not represent key values and ideals of Hinduism.
The party retorted with this tweet: “Aa gaye apni line par? From how they are sleeping and what they are wearing, the needle got stuck in religion. Don’t divert in panic. Real issues are: price rise, unemployment and economic mess. Engage with us on these issues.”
Party communication chief Jairam Ramesh said: “An atrocious tweet from the BJP hate factory is doing the rounds. It bears no relation whatsoever to what is recorded in the audio. This is typical BJP mischief that has become more desperate after the successful launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra which is evoking such a huge response.”
Ramesh added: “People who were responsible for the killing of Mahatma Gandhi and the murders of people like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh are raising questions! Such attempts to damage the spirit of Bharat Jodo Yatra will fail miserably.”
Rahul Gandhi avoided getting sucked into triviality, maintaining focus on substantive issues.
After meeting the group of young local men and women who wore the “I am walking for job” T-shirts, he tweeted: “42% of our youth are unemployed. Is Bharat’s future secure if theirs isn’t? We walk for them all. We walk for jobs.”
Congress leaders asked the BJP to answer why cooking gas cylinders sold for Rs 1,053 on its watch and why the price of mustard oil had crossed Rs 200 and those of petrol and diesel touched Rs 100.
The BJP, whose ministers and MPs had in Parliament denied any significant inflation, has so far not shown any inclination to accept the challenge.
