Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi participated in a snake boat racing on Punnamada Lake on Monday while leading his party's "Bharat Jodo Yatra" across Kerala.
The national president of the Indian Youth Congress, Srinivas BV, shared a video of Rahul Gandhi taking part in Kerala's renowned snake boat race. Rahul Gandhi can be seen in the video rowing alongside the other competitors while seated in one of the snake boats.
Quoting the famous Hindi poet, Srinivas captioned the video, "Leheron se dar kar nauka paar nahi hoti, Koshish karne walon ki haar nahi hoti." This means that the one who tries never fails to achieve their goals.
In 1952, while on a visit to Alappuzha, Rahul Gandhi's great grandfather and then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru participated in an impromptu race. Since then, the Nehru Boat Race is held at the Vembanad lake in Alappuzha and has now become part of the itinerary of global tourists.
On returning to Delhi, Nehru donated a silver trophy, a replica of a snake boat placed on a wooden abacus with an inscription and his signature, IANS reported. This is the trophy that the winner in the snake boat race is awarded.
The 3,570 km and 150-day long ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7 and is set to conclude in Jammu and Kashmir.
The foot march that entered Kerala on September 10 will traverse through the southern state covering 450 km over 19 days before entering Karnataka on October 1.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said the party had created an atmosphere of hatred and anger that is not in the DNA of the country. He said India has many critical goals to achieve. We have to reduce the suffering of millions of poor people. It's not easy and can't be possible if India is divided, angry, full of hatred for itself.