Rahul Gandhi simultaneously insults Indian Army, dogs and International Yoga Day

The president of the Indian National Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, incurred the wrath of dog lovers, yogis and his political opponents all at once, with a tweet deriding the Indian Army’s elite dog unit on International Yoga Day.

Gandhi tweeted an image of the army’s dogs performing asanas, or yogic poses, on the fifth International Day of Yoga, with the caption “New India,” in reference to one of the Modi government’s slogans.  

Gandhi’s National Congress party suffered an embarrassing rout in the recent national elections, and many of his political opponents in the ruling BJP party saw the tweet as a petty swipe.

“Ok. He still hasn’t learnt his lessons. In one go, he has insulted our Army, brave Jawans, the incredible dog unit, Yoga tradition & our country,” Bharatiya Janata Party MP Tejasvi Surya said in a tweet.

Many of Surya’s colleagues echoed his sentiments, saying Gandhi had disrespected India, its traditions and its army with one BJP spokesperson taking it a step further, claiming “life is one continuing joke for [Gandhi].”

While the original tweet of the dogs went viral across India, accruing 2,700 retweets, 10,600 likes, and 198 comments, Gandhi’s inflammatory and derisory retweet garnered some 17,000 likes and 3,300 retweets. The devil’s in the Twitter ratio, however, as the pithy tweet currently has 9,500 comments, indicating a highly unfavorable reaction overall.

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