Rahul Gandhi seen in jacket for the first time during Bharat Jodo Yatra | Watch

The yatra was scheduled to start at 7 am but was delayed by an hour and fifteen minutes apparently due to the inclement weather (Photo: Screengrab)

By Sunil Bhat: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi was on Friday for the first time seen in a jacket during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Braving winter rains, Rahul Gandhi started his Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kathua's Hatli Morh in the border district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday amid heavy security arrangements. The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.

Rahul Gandhi had marched through north India in peak winter wearing just a t-shirt. He had revealed that he decided to wear only T-shirts during the Congress' ongoing Bharat Jodo after meeting poor girls 'shivering in torn clothes' in Madhya Pradesh.

However, today he was finally seen wearing a black jacket over a white T-shirt. The yatra was scheduled to start at 7 am but was delayed by an hour and fifteen minutes apparently due to inclement weather.

Rahul Gandhi was seen in a white T-shirt when the yatra was in Haryana on December 21 despite the nail biting cold. His 'white T-shirt' again shot to prominence when he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and former prime ministers amid Delhi's chilly winter.

Responding to the queries about him not feeling cold in Delhi winter, Gandhi had said, "They keep asking me how I do not feel cold. But they do not ask the farmer, the worker, poor children, this question."

The march, which started from Kanyakumari on September 7, entered Jammu and Kashmir from Punjab on Thursday evening and is scheduled to end in Srinagar on January 30. Hundreds of people had gathered to receive the yatra, which will conclude on January 30 with a grand finale in Srinagar.

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Several Congress leaders, including the party's Jammu and Kashmir unit president Vikar Rasool Wani and his predecessor G A Mir, accompanied Gandhi during the final leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Meanwhile, controversial Dongra Swabhiman Sangthan Sangathan Party (DSSP) leader Choudhary Lal Singh, whose decision to join the Bharat Jodo had led to objections from a section of the Congress and other parties, said his support to the foot march was not a mistake.

Singh, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister in the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government in J&K, was forced to resign from the party for allegedly supporting the accused in the Kathua rape and murder case of 2018, which sparked a nationwide furore.

"I have not made a mistake by supporting the yatra which is meant to remove hatred and spread the message of love. I have fulfilled my responsibility and have not raised a question why I was not invited on the dias," Lal Singh said.

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Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut told news agency PTI, "I have come to join the Yatra on behalf of my party. The atmosphere in the country is changing fast and I see Gandhi as a leader who is raising his voice on real issues."

"The way people are connecting with this yatra is heartwarming. He is a leader and that is why he is on the roads. The people will choose (who would be their leader), he added.

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(With PTI inputs)