My T-shirt has become more important than...: Rahul

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said him wearing a T-shirt has become more important for the media than that poor farmers and labourers wearing torn clothes walking with him during the party's ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra.

IMAGE: TV actress Kamya Punjabi joins Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat. Photograph: ANI Photo

He pointed out that the media doesn't ask why children of poor people are walking without a sweater or a jacket during the winter season.

On Wednesday while addressing a 'nukkad sabha' at Baraut on the Baghpat-Shamli border, Gandhi said "I walk in (Bharat Jodo) yatra wearing T-shirts. Many children of poor farmers and labourers walk with me in the yatra wearing torn clothes. But the media does not ask why children of poor farmers and labourers are walking without a sweater and jacket during the winter season."

The former Congress party chief further said that the purpose of the party's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' is to remove fear from the people's minds and highlight issues like price rise and unemployment.

Criticising the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre over the Agneepath scheme, Gandhi said, "Earlier, the youth used to serve in the Army for 15 years and get a pension but Narendra Modi thought to keep pension aside, train for six months, hold the gun, stay for four years, then kick you out and you will be unemployed. This is new Hindustan."

He also said that the policy of the Bharatiya Janata Party is to scare youth, farmers and labourers of the country.

"When the youth took to the streets against the scheme, Modi ji said that if your photo is taken (during the protest), you will not get a government job. BJP's policy is to scare youth, farmers, and labourers," the MP from Wayanad said.

Meanwhile, the Congress' foot march entered its Uttar Pradesh leg on Tuesday afternoon after starting from the Marghat Hanuman temple, in Delhi,

On Thursday, it resumed from Shamli's Ailum village in Uttar Pradesh.

The yatra is expected to cross Uttar Pradesh over a span of three days before re-entering Haryana on January 6. The yatra entered Uttar Pradesh from Delhi via Loni.

So far, the Yatra, which started from Kanyakumari on September 7, has covered parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra and Haryana. It will culminate in Jammu and Kashmir.