Priyanka Vadra will be at the Kumbh Mela in February. Her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi is expected to join her.
New Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is likely to start her political innings by taking a shahi snaan (holy dip) at the Sangam during the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, either on 4 February or the 10th of the month, along with her brother and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, ThePrint has learnt.
Sources told ThePrint that Priyanka, who is currently in the US, will return to India on 31 January and will likely head to Lucknow where a press interaction is being organised for her.
It is after this that she is expected to take the holy dip at Prayagraj at an occasion of high religious significance.
“Priyanka will take holy snaan and seek blessings at a nearby temple,” said a senior Congress functionary. “Rahul Gandhi is likely to accompany her. After performing all the rituals, she will formally take charge.”
Mother had taken a dip too
It was Sonia Gandhi who as the president of the Congress had taken a holy dip at Prayagraj during the Kumbh Mela in 2001, a mega Hindu congregation.
Priyanka and Rahul taking part in the ritual is of high symbolic value, especially at a time when the Congress is working hard to counter allegations, particularly from the BJP, that it indulges in minority appeasement.
If they do take part in the ritual, however, it will only add to the recent accusations that Rahul has begun indulging in “soft Hindutva”. The charges will only be strengthened as Priyanka is known to be a follower of Buddhist philosophy.
Of late, Rahul has made a number of visits to temples during the Gujarat assembly elections followed by the three recent polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
During the campaign trail in Rajasthan, Rahul had even declared his gotra to a temple priest in Pushkar, who presided over the puja offered by the Congress president on 26 November. The Congress’ social media team also posted pictures of him making the rounds of temples and sporting the tilak.
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Congress may host a rally
According to another party functionary, the Congress is looking at organising a rally in which Priyanka is likely to address party workers and functionaries. Sources said that Rahul is expected to be part of this rally.
Priyanka was Wednesday appointed the Congress general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, a development that marked her much-awaited entry into active politics. The appointment, months before the Lok Sabha elections, is significant as it comes close on the heels of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) forging an alliance in UP without the Congress.
The region Priyanka has been given charge of is significant as it contains Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency, Varanasi, and CM Yogi Adityanath’s stronghold and former parliamentary seat, Gorakhpur.
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Soft Hindutva, really ??? Bad journalism and bad choice of words
Soft Hindutva is a contradiction in terms. What the Congress leadership is doing, for electoral purposes, is to fill in a little religious colour into the somewhat drab palette of conventional secularism that Nehru’s party has always practised, to the great comfort and reassurance of the minorities. The real distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva is that the former does not need an adversary to pit itself against. For a Hindu to go to the Kumbh for a holy dip – I would be terrified of the water quality – is no more remarkable than a Muslim undertaking the Haj.