 "Rahul Gandhi has been found: It turns out that he was at a conference in Aspen after all")
After much ado from the BJP, Rahul Gandhi has been found. On 23 September, the Congress had announced that Gandhi was leaving for Aspen, United States, to attend a conference, but no further details were provided. [caption id=“attachment_2447238” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
Rahul Gandhi in Aspen. Twitter @OfficeOfRG[/caption] Almost on cue, the ruling party blasted the sudden ‘disappearance’ of the Congress vice-president, referring unfavourably to his 56-day sabbatical earlier this year. “For the last three days, the Congress is misleading the country over Gandhi’s whereabouts. The Congress has claimed that he is travelling to Aspen in the US to attend a conference known as ‘Weekend with Charlie Rose’. But we have got to know that the said conference was over in July,” BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told reporters in New Delhi. BJP spokesman Sambit Patra called it a ‘forced vacation’ and RSS even claimed it as an escape tactic with the Bihar elections just around the corner. But it seems like, Gandhi has been discovered. Gandhi’s Twitter handle, @OfficeOfRG on Monday morning teeted pictures of him attending a conference in Aspen.
Congress leader Milind Deora also tweeted out a couple of pictures (one even with the President of Iceland) with Gandhi from the conference. He wrote that the conference concerned ’new media & international affairs’.
As a local newspaper Aspen Times reported, that ‘Rose and others are back in Aspen this weekend for the conference, which started Thursday (24 September) and ends Monday (28 September)’. That Gandhi’s participation in the conference was not publicly known is unsurprising. The details of the event are generally so hush-hush that locals only realised it was taking place last year ‘Vice President Joe Biden’s 40-vehicle motorcade forced motorists to be rerouted’, the newspaper adds. Bikram Vohra, writing for Firstpost , had previously pointed out at the absurdity of the whole situation, “It is more relevant to express dismay about the rising prices of dals and other essential commodities than fret about how he went, who lent him a plane, where he is and what is this secret cabal in Colorado where he will display his incandescent brilliance,” he noted. With inputs from agencies