NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s visits to temples during his whirlwind tour of Gujarat is part of his party’s positioning for the yearend assembly polls. Gandhi began his tour with a visit to Dwarkadhish Temple on Monday and his Wednesday itinerary includes visits to Chamunda Mataji and Khodaldham temples.Congress circles read a larger political message in Gandhi seeking divine blessings as it battles the BJP-RSS propaganda to paint it as ‘anti-Hindu’ and ‘minority appeaser’. Gujarat elections since 2002 have seen BJP reaping the benefit of a polarised electorate.Not just in Gujarat, the Congress is keen to counter BJP-RSS on a pan-India level by reviving its traditional image of being a ‘religious and inclusive secular party’ as against what it calls ‘religious communal politics’ of BJP and RSS “Indians are traditionally religious and pious. We will underline it is one thing to be ‘religious and secular’ and entirely different to be ‘religiously communal’. Congress supporters fall in the first category, while the BJP and Sangh Parivar stoke religious communalism. So Rahulji visiting temples is part of Congress tradition. He will continue to visit mosques and other places of worship,” said a senior Congress leader. Old timers recalled how Sonia Gandhi took a holy dip at the Sangam, while battling the ‘foreigner’ tag.“Indiraji used to invariably start all her political tours of states with a visit to temples. Yet, nobody questioned her secular credentials and she commanded a huge support among Muslims and other minority communities too. Anybody giving a communal twist to leaders visiting temples will be playing into the BJPRSS attempts to project religious and pious Hindus as its supporters,” said a CWC member. It’s no secret Congress has traditionally attached strategic importance to the ‘Pandit’ suffix to Jawaharlal Nehru, the doyen of secular politics.The Congress leadership has been uneasy about BJP-RSS branding it as ‘anti-Hindu,’ which intensified after the UPA regime constituted the Sachar Committee to submit a report on the social, economic and educational conditions of Muslims. Interestingly, some CPM leaders in Delhi used the term ‘soft Hindutva’, when Sonia Gandhi kicked off one of her Gujarat campaigns with a temple visit. However, in Kerala, the party now encourages its cadre and local leaders to be part of religious functions, including visit to temples, during poll season.