Congress, BJP spar over Rahul Gandhi aarti video

Fact-checkers and Congress leaders pointed out that Mr. Gandhi was performing the aarti in a clockwise fashion and posted videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi doing the ritual in a similar manner.

A war of words ensued on social media on Saturday after BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posted a video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi performing aarti, which he said was being done in an “anti-clockwise” way.

Fact-checkers and Congress leaders pointed out that Mr. Gandhi was performing the aarti in a clockwise fashion and posted videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi doing the ritual in a similar manner.

“If only ‘ chunavi Hindu’ Rahul Gandhi knew that aarti is done clockwise and there is a scientific reason for it (earth moves in clockwise direction and hence environmental frequencies are in sync with movement), he would not be making a spectacle of himself in public like this…,” Mr. Malviya tweeted with a four-second video of Mr. Gandhi.

The Congress leader, his sister and party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her family members had performed the Ma Narmada aarti at Omkareshwar temple in Madhya Pradesh on Friday.

Congress social media department head Supriya Shrinate tweeted two videos side by side of Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Modi doing aarti and asked, “Is it ok now?”, tagging Mr. Malviya and Union Minister Smriti Irani.

Ms. Irani, who defeated Mr. Gandhi in Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, had shared an upside down photograph of the former Congress president performing aarti, commenting, “Now it is ok.”

The Congress’s official Twitter handle also posted a photograph of an LPG cylinder upside down posing the same question, “Is it ok?”