Khanna/Ludhiana: He is 5’ 6, fair with light brown hair and a beard with flecks of grey. Often mobbed by people either straining to click selfies or tell him about their problems, he created quite a stir as he walked among the rank and file of the Congress during the Ludhiana leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra this week.
No, he’s not Rahul Gandhi. Though at first glance you might easily mistake him for the Congress leader. He even dressed the same way — white half-sleeved T-shirt and beige trousers with no sweater, even though it was a chilly 10–13°C.
Meet 23-year-old Mohammad Faisal Choudhary, a Congress worker fondly known as ‘Chhota Rahul’ in his hometown Meerut.
Born into a farming family, Choudhary is part of the party unit in Meerut. Having joined the yatra in Delhi, he intends to stay on until its culmination at Srinagar later this month.
“My father and grandfather believed in Congress’s ideology. So I also joined the party three years ago. It is god’s gift that I have been blessed with such looks that people mistake me for Rahul Gandhi,” he told ThePrint as he walked behind the media van at the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
For Choudhary, all the attention has now become commonplace, as has the warm welcome he receives wherever he goes.
“Sometimes people actually think I’m him, and they hug me, or garland me. Rahul ji walks with tight security, so not everyone can meet him, but I don’t have any security so they click photos with me instead,” he said.
His resemblance to Rahul is so striking that his fellow yatris recounted an incident when the yatra was crossing Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat, where a woman, mistaking him for the Congress scion, began to recount her problems to him.
“She kept saying things as we watched quietly. It suddenly hit her that she wasn’t speaking to the real Rahul Gandhi and she slapped her forehead in dismay,” the yatri, who didn’t want to be identified, told ThePrint.
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Jab they met
On Friday morning, Choudhary, who said he’s inspired by Gandhi’s “simplicity and fitness”, met his idol for the first time and posted a photo of the encounter on Instagram.
So what did they talk about? “He asked me about my family, about what I was doing, and why I was walking in the yatra,” he told ThePrint. “I told him I think of him as my idol.”
The oldest of four siblings, Choudhary is a farmer too — his father died six years ago, forcing him to abandon his BA degree midway to take over the farm.
Despite his striking resemblance to Rahul Gandhi, elections are not on the cards yet, although he would like to contest polls someday. And although he doesn’t have an official post in the Meerut Congress, he does what he can to contribute, he said, adding that more and people should join the yatra: “Even if you can walk a few miles, do that and join the march. Walk with Rahul Gandhi and support him in his efforts to unite the country.”
Despite the bitter cold, he insists on wearing no sweater.
“Thand mind se lagti hai (cold is in the mind). I’ve decided that I will walk like Rahul ji, so I don’t feel cold,” he said, adding he’ll only wear one when Gandhi does.
Although Choudhary’s made to feel welcome where he goes, some well-wishers from back home have warned him against speaking freely about politics.
“They say I shouldn’t aspire to aim higher or rise up quickly, but these are just a few people. A majority has shown me support for walking in the yatra,” he said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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