"I was young when I had first met Gandhiji (Mahatma Gandhi) in Jabalpur. I was 13 or 14 years old when I had met him in 1944. I would shout 'chachaji, chachaji,' when I had joined a rally he was conducting back then and he had patted my back. I would follow him wherever he would go," said 90-year-old Karuna Mishra, the oldest man in the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, as he recalled his younger days.
Significantly, Mishra also joined Rahul's march on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October, and has been relentlessly marching every day since with a national flag and his walking stick.
A staunch supporter and worker of the party for close to 60 years, Mishra said that it was late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who inspired him to join politics. He said he has even met Indira Gandhi several times.