Trimmed beard and short hair: Rahul Gandhi's new appearance ahead of his Cambridge lecture

Apart from his party's much-touted Bharat Jodo Yatra, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's long beard and rugged appearance became a hot topic of discussion among netizens. The Gandhi scion has now changed his appearance ahead of his lecture at Cambridge University, his alma mater. Rahul didn't trim his hair during the entirety of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, but he wouldn't look the same during a week's tour across UK.

The Congress MP's new look has been shared on social media, with some netizens using the hashtag #NewLook.










Rahul Gandhi started the Bharat Jodo Yatra in September 2022 from Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari, but as the Yatra progressed, his looks changed dramatically as he let his hair and beard grow and appeared like a different person as the Yatra culminated in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar on January 30.

At Cambridge, Rahul Gandhi is slated to hold closed-door sessions on "Big Data and Democracy" and "India-China relations" with Professor Shruti Kapila, an Indian-origin Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies at the university's Corpus Christi College and Co-Director of the Global Humanities Initiative.

"Our @CambridgeMBA programme is pleased to welcome India's leading Opposition leader and MP Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress," Cambridge JBS tweeted on Tuesday.



Opposition leaders also took potshots at Rahul Gandhi's transformation, with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma commenting that the Congress leader looked like "Saddam Hussein," the former Iraqi dictator, and it would have been better had he changed his appearance like Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi. Hitting back, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said the Assam CM was sounding like a "petty troll".

During a public rally in Ahmedabad in November last year, Sarma had said, "I just saw that his looks have also changed. I said in a TV interview a few days back that there is nothing wrong with his new look. But if you have to change the looks, at least make it like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel or even Jawaharlal Nehru will do. It is better if it looks like Gandhiji. But why is your face turning into Saddam Hussein?"