Indian National Congress member Rahul Gandhi garnered a lot of praise and some criticism for sharing peanuts with an older lady who seems to have just walked in to say hello to the politician while he was enjoying an evening out.

The place Gandhi is sitting seems very public, with another person in the background also recording the lady’s interaction with the politician from a window.

Gandhi seems relaxed with the lady coming and draping her arm around him in a motherly fashion and encourages her to eat more peanuts, handing them to her himself.

He greets her with a lot of love and respect in the brief interaction recorded by Srinivas BV, the national president of the Indian Youth Congress.

Some people were impressed:

While others, not so much:

Gandhi’s politics focuses on highlighting what people want, even offering platforms to his party members to air their grievances and suggestions. In May 2022, he announced that the congress’s connection with the Indian people has been broken and that the party must go to the people and sit with them.

“We have decided that the Congress party in October will go to people and take out a yatra and strengthen the relation…with people. This cannot happen with short-cuts,” he told The Economic Times.