Rahul, Sonia wash their plates after lunch at Sevagram Ashram

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi Tuesday washed their plates after lunch at the Sevagram Ashram in Wardha district, where they attended the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, a party leader said.

Rahul Gandhi attended a prayer meeting at the "Bapu kuti", the residence of the father of the nation during his last years in the Ashram, to mark his 149th birth anniversary.

Besides Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and the CWC members also paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at the Bapu Kuti.

"Rahul washed his plate after lunch at the ashram. Sonia Gandhi too washed her plate," the Congress leader said.

The meeting of the Congress's apex decision-making body was held at a venue where the "Quit India" resolution was adopted in 1942 under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership.

The Congress chief also visited the office of the Mahatma at the ashram.

Mahatma Gandhi had made Wardha his home after the famous Dandi salt march against the British in 1930.

"Gandhiji is not an immobile statue, he is a living set of ideas and values flowing through India. Truth and non-violence, which he lived for and was killed for, are the foundation of our country. True patriots must protect them," Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.

The Congress chief planted a sapling in the ashram, next to the tree his father and former prime minister late Rajiv Gandhi had planted on this day in 1986.

This is Rahul Gandhi's second visit to the ashram. He had earlier planted a sapling here on January 24, 2014.

The Congress chief, along with the top CWC leaders, also attended a prayer meeting under the dense tree-cover in the Sevagram complex.