Watch: Crowd cheers as Rahul Gandhi addresses rally amid heavy rains in Mysuru

“Just as Gandhiji fought the British Raj, we are today fighting a battle with the very ideology that killed Gandhi. This ideology has in the past eight years delivered inequality, divisiveness and the erosion of our hard-won freedoms,” the Congress leader who is on the Karnataka leg of Bharat Jodo Yatra, the foot march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, said.

Meanwhile, the NCP drew parallels between Sharad Pawar’s rain-drenched speech during a bypoll campaign in 2019 and Rahul Gandhi’s address amid showers in Mysuru.

“‘Time has Proved and Time will Prove’. When the Rain Gods decide to Bless you, there will soon be a Storm in the Opposition Camp,” NCP national spokesman Clyde Crasto said in a tweet, referring to Gandhi’s speech at a rally in Mysuru during his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Crasto also posted pictures on Twitter of Pawar addressing a rally in Satara during a Lok Sabha bypoll in October 2019, and Gandhi’s rally on Sunday.

Several other Congress leaders too shared pictures and videos on social media of Rahul’s speech in pouring rain in Mysuru on Sunday.

Pawar had addressed the rally on October 18, 2019, canvassing for NCP candidate Shriniwas Patil for the bypoll, necessitated due to the resignation of NCP member Udayanraje Bhosale, who had joined the BJP.

Bhosale contested the bypoll as a BJP candidate and Patil defeated him by a margin of over 87,000 votes.

NCP leaders had credited the victory to Pawar, whose rally in pouring rain in Satara was much-talked about in the elections.