From a peek to pleasant proximity

Seven-year-old boy hogs Rahul's attention at election meeting

CYNOSURE OF ALL EYES: AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi greets seven-year-old Karthik at an election meeting in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday. Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

For seven-year-old Karthik Lal, getting close up to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi was something he would never have imagined.

But that's what happened when Mr. Gandhi beckoned the boy to come to the stage at an election meeting on the Bhagat Singh Grounds at Poojapura here.

The meeting was about to begin when Mr. Gandhi spotted the boy straining himself to get a view of the stage through barricades. And when Mr. Gandhi asked him to come to the stage, the Standard II student of Amritha Vidyalaya was a little bewildered. He struggled his way out of the barricade, but SPG officials stopped him from moving forward. Soon, directions came to let the boy through.

Shy on stage

When he came up the stage, bewilderment gave place to shyness. “Rahulji asked me my name and some other questions which I could not understand,” Karthik told journalists later.

Karthik surely must not have felt the importance of the moment when he made a brief appearance alongside Mr. Gandhi.

Soon after the meeting, he was surrounded by mediapersons and Congress workers who wanted to know more about what happened on the stage.

Karthik has only one regret. He will have to wait until school reopens before he can boast of his rare experience.

“I want to get a photograph of me and Rahulji together so that I can show it to my friends,” he said.

Son of Ajith Lal, an office-bearer of the pro-Congress Bank Employees' Organisation, Karthik belongs to a family of Congress workers. His uncle Sajith Lal was murdered by DYFI activists in 1985 at Payyannur in Kannur district.

The family later moved to Thiruvananthapuram fearing further reprisal, said Mr. Ajith Lal.