I'm opening 'Mohabbat ka dukaan' in their 'nafrat ka bazaar', Rahul Gandhi says at Bharat Jodo Yatra

Alwar, December 20

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has called his Bharat Jodo Yatra as ‘Mohabbat ka dukaan’ (shop of love) amid an existing ‘nafrat ka bazaar’ (market of hatred) while responding to BJP leaders who questioned him for conducting the yatra.

“I am opening ‘Mohabbat ka dukaan’ (a shop of love) in ‘nafrat ka bazaar’ (the market of hatred). This is my response to the BJP leaders who ask why I am doing this yatra,” Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said in Alwar in Rajasthan on Monday.

Rahul was addressing a rally when a chance gesture of love from an attendee caused him to digress and he said that on his over 100-day-long march he had often come across BJP leaders on rooftops in several towns and cities viewing his padyatra. Often they would gesture to him asking “what are you doing?”, Rahul said they would often force him to ponder on “what exactly he was doing — walking, meeting people, joining people, reaching out”, but finally on Monday he could come up with the exact response.

The former Congress president said that his “mohabbat ka dukaan” is, however, not something new as all Congress leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sadar Patel, BR Ambedkar and Maulana Azad had done the same.

Rahul said he had no animosity towards the BJP leaders; he might disagree with their views but he liked them all.