It seems nothing is going right for the Congress. Coming as another embarrassment to the oldest national party, a prominent Tamil newspaper on Wednesday published the picture of former Union Minister in the UPA Government Velu Narayanasamy carrying the footwear of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi during the latter’s visit to Puducherry on Tuesday.
A Tamil TV news channel too reported that the 68-year-old former Minister of State in the PMO held the footwear for the Congress vice-president as he was getting ready to take a stroll in the water-logged areas in Puducherry.
The Congress vice-president had visited Puducherry and Tamil Nadu to take stock of the flood situation and relief operations. The picture showed Narayanasamy holding a pair of footwear for the 45-year-old party vice-president to take a walk through a water-logged stretch. But Narayanasamy, out in the wilderness after he was defeated in the 2014 lok Sabha election, refuted the reports and told mediapersons that he had offered his footwear to the Congress vice-president who removed his shoes to take a walk in the water-logged region.
“It was not Rahulji’s slippers, it was mine and I was holding it for him to wear out of courtesy so that he could walk through a flooded neighbourhood. Rahulji was wearing shoes and he had to remove it as the street was flooded. As he got ready to walk barefoot, I offered my footwears as the flooded street had thorns and rough stones,” he told a news agency.
Narayanasamy, a prominent Congress leader from Puducherry, also revealed that he followed Rahulji by wearing another pair of slippers given to him by a party worker.
The young Gandhi was seen wearing the footwear offered by Narayanasamy and walking away. It is not known whether he returned the footwear to Narayanasamy or flew back to New Delhi wearing them.
Details like whether Rahul Gandhi was wearing shoes on his arrival or whether he and Narayanasamy share the same measurements were not available. But political commentator BR Haran was amused by the photograph which showed Narayanasamy bowing and placing the footwear for Rahul Gandhi to wear. “It is a matter of survival in the flood of Congress politics,” commented Haran.