Rahul Gandhi reaches out to Kashmiri Pandits during two-day visit to Jammu

Rahul Gandhi speaking at an office-bearers meeting in Jammu on September 10.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on September 10 made overtures to the Kashmiri Pandit community in Jammu, promising to work for them and asserting his own Kashmiri Pandit identity. "I am a Kashmiri Pandit. My family is Kashmiri Pandit. A delegation of Kashmiri Pandits met me and said that Congress implemented many welfare schemes for them but the BJP has done nothing. I promise my Kashmiri Pandit brothers that I will do something for them," he said.

Rahul Gandhi made the comments while on a two-day visit to Jammu, where he travelled to the Vaishno Devi shrine from Katra on foot. Several videos on social media showed the Wayanad MP walking alongside pilgrims on the 14-km stretch leading to the shrine, surrounded by security personnel.

This is Rahul Gandhi's second major pilgrimage in the past few weeks. While visiting Jammu and Kashmir last month, his first after the abrogation of Article 370, he had paid obeisance at the Mata Kheer Bhawani shrine in Kashmir’s Ganderbal district.

On September 10, he was seen exhorting people to chant 'Jai Mata Di' from a stage in Jammu. He did that again while addressing a congregation of Congress workers, making the appeal a second time to get a louder reception from his audience. However, the Congress leader refrained from making any political comment. "I have come here to offer prayers to the Mata (mother goddess). I don't want to make any political comments here," he told reporters.