Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on a three-day visit to the United States, on Tuesday contradicted his own statement on the idea of a 'Yatra' during a media interaction at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, USA.
Rahul, answering the very first question posed by the host about his political and personal transformation in the last few years, said that he thinks politics in India changed very dramatically in 2014. "We entered a phase that we hadn’t seen in India before—aggressive, attacking the foundation of our democratic structure. So, it’s a tough fight, but it’s been a good fight. And personally, of course, things have changed."
"I wouldn't have ever imagined it before 2014. If you had come to me and said, 'You will walk across from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir,' I would have just laughed at you. I would have said, 'That's ridiculous.' But we found that it was literally the only way to reach the people of India."
When Rahul was asked what inspired him to take these journeys, he said, "We were forced politically to take out the Yatra because all the instruments that normally work in a democracy—they just were not working... The media was not working, the courts were not working... nothing was working. So we said, okay, let's go direct. We went, and it worked... It worked beautifully. This was at the political level and in terms of my work, but as an individual, at a personal level, I had always wanted to do it. I always wanted to do it since I was young. I always had this idea that I must, at some point in my life, walk across my country and see what it's about..."
Before the media interaction, the Congress leader met with US lawmakers at the Rayburn House Office Building.
