It is a question 47-year-old Rahul Gandhi is accustomed to facing at public events and professional boxer Vijender Singh asked it again at the annual meet of the PHD Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.
“My wife and I want to know when Rahul bhaiyya will get married,” asked the boxer at the Q&A session soon after Mr. Gandhi’s valedictory address here.
In the bargain, the boxer and the rest of the audience got to know that Mr. Gandhi is a black belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido.
Reluctant to answer, Mr. Gandhi tried to brush off the question, calling it an old one. But the boxer, whose wedding Mr. Gandhi attended a few years ago, persisted and asked if he [Mr. Gandhi] would get married and then become Prime Minister. “I believe in destiny, and when it [marriage] has to happen, it will happen,” he said. Mr. Gandhi’s answer evoked a round of applause.
The former Olympian turned professional boxer also asked why politicians did not take part in sports. Mr. Gandhi said he did not include himself in that category of politicians.
“I do exercise, run and swim, and I am a black belt in Aikido, but [I] don’t speak about it publicly. Sports is very important for me and I spend at least an hour doing sports,” he said, and agreed to a suggestion that he should put short videos of these activities on his social media platforms.
To another question whether he would prefer to have younger faces whenever his party comes to power, Mr. Gandhi said, “Any Congress government in the future will be a much younger government, but there is value to experience.”
Mentioning former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram as examples of experience and wisdom, he said, “We will have a large majority of younger people but we will have support from our traditional wisdom.”