SP, NC skip Rahul’s 1st Iftar as chief

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 13

Congress president Rahul Gandhi today mocked PM Narendra Modi’s fitness call to the country calling the latter’s exercise video on Twitter “ridiculous and bizarre”.

The remarks came this evening when Rahul was hosting Iftar, his first as Congress president. His mother Sonia Gandhi was not present as she is out of India.

Seated on the high table with Rahul was former President Pranab Mukherjee, who recently anguished his parent party Congress by visiting the RSS headquarters in Nagpur to deliver a lecture. Also present was ex-President Pratibha Patil. Among others at Rahul’s table were former Vice President Hamid Ansari, BSP’s Satish Chandra Mishra, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, TMC’s Dinesh Trivedi and DMK’s Kanimozhi. NCP’s DP Tripathi, JMM chief Hemant Soren, RJD’s Manoj Jha and Loktantrik Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav were also present in a show of opposition unity. SP and National Conference leaders were conspicuous by their absence.

The fact that the gathering was politically light-weight provoked debates around Rahul’s acceptance as leader of the anti-BJP block. It also triggered comparison between Rahul as a host vis-a-vis his mother Sonia.

Cong chief’s sorry to rice innovator’s Kin

• Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday met the kin of late Dadaji Khobragade, the rural inventor who revolutionised rice farming, in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district and apologised for the nation’s ‘apathy’ towards his achievements.
• Khobragade had invented the HMT variety of paddy, but died “largely forgotten and in penury”, he said. pti