At His First Iftar As Congress President, Rahul Shares Table With Pranab Mukherjee, Takes Dig At PM Fitness Video

Congress president Rahul Gandhi described Prime Minister Narendra Modi's fitness video put out on Wednesday morning as "bizarre" and "ridiculous".

"Did you see the PM's fitness video? It is ridiculous... I mean... It is bizarre... This is bankruptcy," he said as he poked fun at the video put out by the prime minister.

Sharing a table with former presidents Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil, Gandhi then turned to Yechury asking him to put out his fitness video as a challenge to Modi's.

READ ALSO: Pranab Mukherjee Showed RSS The Mirror Of Truth: Congress

Days after a row erupted over his address at the RSS headquarters, former president Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday broke bread with Rahul Gandhi at an Iftar party hosted by the Congress chief here.

READ ALSO: Pranab Mukherjee's RSS Speech Will Be Forgotten, Not Visuals: Daughter Sharmishta Mukherjee

Among the prominent personalities included Mukherjee's predecessor Pratibha Patil and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, besides former vice president Hamid Ansari and a host of opposition leaders.

While top opposition leaders were conspicuous by their absence, middle-rung leaders of many parties were at the Iftar hosted at a local luxury hotel. No senior leader of Samajwadi Party attended it.

This is the first Iftar hosted by Gandhi as Congress president.

Among other leaders included CPI-M's Sitaram Yechury, BSP's Satish Chandra Misra, TMC's Dinesh Trivedi and DMK's Kanimozhi.

Breakaway JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, JD(S) leader Danish Ali, JMM's Hemant Soren, NCP's DP Tripathy, RJD's Manoj Jha, AIUDF leader Badruddin Ajmal, RLD's Mehrajuddin also attended the party.

"Good food, friendly faces and great conversation make for a memorable Iftar! We were honoured to have two former Presidents, Pranab Da and Smt Pratibha Patil ji join us, along with leaders from different political parties, the media, diplomats and many old and new friends," Gandhi said on Twitter after the Iftar.

Mukherjee was seen conversing with Gandhi and exchanging pleasantries with him and several other senior Congress leaders.

There was considerable disquiet in the Congress after Mukherjee accepted the invitation of the RSS to address its workers at its headquarters in Nagpur.

After much consternation, the party however, later complimented him for his speech for showing the mirror of truth that carried lessons on pluralism and secularism to the Sangh.

Gandhi came along with Mukherjee and while the former president left after sometime, the Congress chief offered to drop him back but Mukherjee politely refused.

Earlier, leaders of some opposition parties met at a different location to discuss possibilities of a larger alliance.

Kanimozhi later said, "Everyone wants alliances but today's meeting was a courtesy meeting."

Also present at the Iftar were a large gathering of diplomats, including the Ambassador of Russia to India.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was not present as she is currently abroad on a medical check up.

Top Congress leaders including many former chief ministers and governors and ex-central ministers were present. These included Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni, Janardan Dwivedi, Anand Sharma, Veerappa Moily, Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik, KV Thomas, Shivraj Chouhan, PJ Kurien and former chief ministers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan and Shiela Dikshit.

(PTI)