The Ladakh tour of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been extended until August 25, according to party officials on Thursday. Rahul will reportedly spend his father Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday, which falls on August 20, in Pangong Lake, according to party sources. Rahul is visiting Ladakh for the first time since Jammu and Kashmir split into Ladakh and J-K on August 5, 2019, when Article 370 and 35(A) were repealed.
He will start taking part in events today, August 18, in Leh. On Friday, Rahul will meet with young people and go to a football game in Leh. Rahul Gandhi will attend a dinner with Leh’s notables on Friday night.
Rahul traveled to Jammu and Srinagar in January of this year as part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Later, he made a personal trip to Jammu and Kashmir in February of this year, but was unable to travel to Ladakh.
During his stay, he will visit the Kargil Memorial and speak with the children there.
According to the source, he would also watch a football game in Leh. Rahul played football while he was a college student. He will take part in the August 25 meeting of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), which consists of 30 members.
Next month, Rahul Gandhi will begin a tour of Europe.
The Congress leader will travel to Belgium, Norway, and France during a European tour that will follow his trip to Ladakh in the second week of September. Meetings with members of the EU Parliament, outreach to the Indian diaspora, and interactions with university students are all on the agenda.
After his 10-day tour of the US, which started in May of this year, he is now traveling abroad. The congress leader’s US visit included stops in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and New York.
This is Rahul Gandhi’s first foreign visit after the restoration of his Lok Sabha membership on August 7.
Foreign trips by Rahul Gandhi have drawn criticism.
The BJP accused Rahul Gandhi of taking a “anti-India” stance on foreign land during his most recent trips abroad, which led to a controversy in India.
Since making the claim that Indian democracy is being threatened and attacked in a lecture at Cambridge University in London earlier this year, Rahul Gandhi has come under fire for traveling abroad.
In his Cambridge speech, Rahul Gandhi said Indian democracy is under attack as the institutions including Judiciary, and media are attacked by the government. He said PM Modi is destroying the architecture of India and imposing ideas that India can’t absorb. Accusing the BJP government of surveilling the opposition leaders, Rahul Gandhi said his phone had Pegasus and he was told by intelligence officers that his calls were being tracked.
His remarks were criticized by the NDA government on the grounds that they damaged the nation’s reputation abroad.
