#BharatJodoYatra : Ahead Of Yatra , Rahul Gandhi Pays Emotional Tribute To Rajiv Gandhi At Sriperumbudur

Picture : Twitter/ ANI

Before the start of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi attended a prayer meeting at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial in Sriperumbudur on Wednesday.

Rahul Gandhi paid floral tribute at his father’s memorial. “I lost my father to the politics of hate and division. I will not lose my beloved country to it too. Love will conquer hate. Hope will defeat fear. Together, we will overcome,” Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Sriperumbudur is where former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a LTTE suicide bomber on May 21, 1991, while campaigning for the 1991 Lok Sabha polls.

Local Congress leaders including Karnataka state party chief D K Shivakumar were present at the prayer meeting.

After the prayer meet, Rahul Gandhi left for Kanyakumari where Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin will present him the Tricolour.

He will attend an event at 4:30 pm in Kanyakumari where Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel will be present. Stalin will present a national flag made of khadi to Gandhi who will hand it over to Seva Dal workers who will manage the Yatra throughout.

The Congress leader will address a rally while officially kickstarting the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.

Posters with ‘welcome Rahul Gandhi’ and ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ written in Tamil adorned the walls of the city on India’s southern tip.

Flags and flyers have been put up leading up to the ‘Mahatma Gandhi Mandapam’, where Rahul Gandhi will receive a Khadi flag from Stalin and hand it over to Seva Dal workers, who will manage the yatra throughout its 3,570-km route from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.

A final check of the preparations at the seaside venue of the rally near the ‘Mahatma Gandhi Mandapam’ was carried out by Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh, along with senior party leader and yatra organisation panel in-charge Digvijaya Singh.