Wayanad: Rahul Gandhi meets retired nurse who was present during his birth

As CP @RahulGandhi‘s third day begins, he shares a light moment with Rajamma, a retired nurse present at the time of his birth.#RahulGandhiWayanad pic.twitter.com/MxvqYJEfRz

— Rahul Gandhi – Wayanad (@RGWayanadOffice) June 9, 2019

Before leaving, Vavathil gifted home-made jackfruit chips and sweets to the Congress chief, who, in turn, promised to meet her again. An excited Vavathil later said she was really happy to meet Gandhi after all these years. “I am really happy and excited. I was the first among the few who took Rahul as a newborn in their hands. All those memories gushed through my mind when I met him again,” she told PTI.

Vavathil was on duty at Delhi’s Holy Family Hospital on June 19, 1970, when Rahul was born. After taking VRS from service, she returned to Kerala in 1987 and is now settled in Kalloor near Sulthan Bathery.

Vavathil made headlines in May this year when she said that no one should contest Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s citizenship status. A row erupted over Rahul’s citizenship during Lok Sabha elections when the MHA issued a notice to the Congress president based on BJP MP Subramanian Swamy’s complaint.

The Congress president is on a three-day visit to the constituency after he was voted to Lok Sabha with a margin of about 4.31 lakh votes. Continuing his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second day of his visit to Wayanad, Gandhi Saturday said his Lok Sabha election campaign was filled with “lies, poison and hatred”, but the Congress stood for truth, love and affection.

After the Congress party’s poor show in the second consecutive general election, Gandhi had offered to resign as the Congress president, but it was rejected by the party’s highest decision-making body. The Congress won 52 seats in the 2019 polls, out of which the party and its allies won 19 out of 20 seats from Kerala.

(With inputs from PTI)