CONGRESS leader Rahul Gandhi has often spoken about swimming as part of his fitness routine. But Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju believes the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha may need some training before taking the plunge into Arunachal Pradesh’s gushing rivers. “Mein yahan ka khiladi hun (I am the player here),” Rijiju said in a post on X on Sunday. The remarks are the latest in a series of good-humoured exchanges between the two political rivals over fitness, including a conversation in Parliament last year and a jiujitsu challenge from Gandhi earlier this year. “Many people are saying that I’m also doing like Rahul Gandhi. Rahul ji may take training for such activities but it’s normal routine in my life.

 

I don’t take training as these are child’s play for me since childhood. My life is full of adventures,” Rijiju wrote, posting a video of himself swimming in a river in Arunachal Pradesh. “Never go to deep water if you do not know swimming. Many people have drowned in the river. The rivers in Arunachal Pradesh are huge and very deep,” he wrote. “Some people might think swimming in gushing rivers of Arunachal Pradesh is like swimming in pools or rivers like Yamuna. In raging rivers, our head should be up, not down & body should be more upright, not straight as we keep in swimming competition. Mein yahan ka khiladi hun,” he said.