Dinesh Sharma calls on Rahul Gandhi to participate in Kumbh Mela

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma Thursday said Congress president Rahul Gandhi should participate in the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj and light a candle at the grave of his grandfather Feroze Gandhi. Sharma was here to extend an invitation for the Kumbh Mela, which starts on January 15, to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and other ministers. "I would request Rahul Gandhi to visit the Kumbh mela. Probably his gotra is also Dattatreya," Sharma said when asked by reporters if the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh will invite Gandhi for the world's biggest religious congregation.

"Those visiting the Kumbh follow tradition. The priest makes you recite prayers and conduct rituals at the Mela and afterwards you have to take out your `janeu' (sacred thread) and offer donations in remembrance of your forefathers," Sharma said, advising Gandhi to do all this. "As Prayag also has the grave of his respected dada (grandfather) Feroze Jahangir Khan alias Gandhi, I would request that he should visit it," Sharma said. "He (Rahul) has never visited that place. He should also go to the grave and light a candle there. This act can give him peace," the deputy chief minister said.

The final resting place of Feroze Gandhi, who was a member of the Lok Sabha, is the Parsi Cemetery in Allahabad. The BJP government has now renamed the city as Prayagraj. A temple priest in Pushkar, Rajasthan, who presided over the puja offered by Rahul Gandhi there on November 26 last year, claimed that the Congress president is a Kashmiri Pandit and belongs to the Dattatreya gotra (clan). This led to a debate over Rahul Gandhi's ancestry, as his grandfather Feroze Gandhi was from the Parsi community.

The Prayagraj Kumbh has been accorded a status of world heritage by UNESCO due to the efforts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Sharma said. The city's name change has restored its "historical and mythological prestige", the minister said.

(With inputs from agencies.)