Indian politician and Gandhi family’s successor Rahul Gandhi through his irresponsible comments insulted India globally

Member of Indian National Congress and the former member of Indian Parliament Rahul Gandhi have once again made some irresponsible comments on India, during his visit to UK. He spoke about threat to democracy in India at Cambridge University and ranted about state of affairs on foreign soil. While addressing to the students of Judge Business School, he covered various topics from his Bharat Jodo Yatra to attack on democracy. He said in his speech, ‘Indian democracy is under pressure and under attack. The institutional framework which is required for a democracy, parliament, free press, the judiciary, just the idea of mobilization- these are all getting constrained. We are facing an attack on the basic structure of democracy’.

Rahul Gandhi is the son of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and politician Sonia Gandhi. The family has glorified history in Indian politics with the legacy left behind by first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. It is also one of the oldest opposition parties against Bhartiya Janta Party. Rahul also mentioned Pegasus snooping controversy and said that number of politicians including him had been spied upon using Israeli software. ‘A large number of political leaders have Pegasus on their phones. I myself had Pegasus on my phone. I have been called by Intelligence officers who say please be careful of what you say on the phone as we are recording the stuff’, he said.

But is it fair to tarnish the image of a nation on a foreign soil on the name of politics? Mahesh Tiwari is a religiously follow Indian politics and claims himself to be a neutral voter. He has no favorite political party or leader and votes according to the work done in past. He said, ‘Congress and BJP rivalry has not started recently but from late 90s. But it is internal politics and should be dealt within the boundaries. Whatever Rahul Gandhi said in University’s speech was not required and he actually defamed our country. The content he delivered was not relevant and he made fool of himself and the Indians living worldwide.’ He further added that Congress is losing its confidence and this is one of the signs.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi started serving in 2014, BJP is leading with no secured political opposition in front. With pro-Hindu narrative, party won hearts of majority, each time election took place. According to experts, due to internal clashes and no new strategies, Congress is not convincing enough for people to bring them into power. Although it is not the first time he has spilled his anger towards the administration global public platform, earlier in UK 2022 he said ‘the deep state is chewing the Indian state’ referring Indian agencies CBI and ED. In Germany 2018, he told ‘women are not equal in India’. He mentioned RSS, a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization as ‘RSS similar to Muslim brotherhood’ in UK 2018. ‘Throw demonetization files in dustbin’, ‘Politics of intimidation’ are the remarks made by him.

Political expert Mr. Chaddha told EAT news the possible reasons behind Mr. Gandhi bad mouthing about everything in India. ‘Congress and BJP are the two major political parties in Indian politics. But we are witnessing BJP spreading its charm over different parts of the country whereas Congress is shrinking in its own ruling state. One of the reasons I believe why Mr. Gandhi is doing such stunts, is due to constant failure party is going through. However he should understand that speaking of all the atrocities, victimization is not actually helping his party but is ruining India’s image at huge level. And nothing major happened that foreign countries or organizations should identify. I think he is unwise to be in politics’, he said. He is just trying to portray current administration as the villains, he added.

The timeline that shows Rahul Gandhi’s irresponsible behavior started after 2014, which is sharply noted by Mr. Chaddha. He said, ‘If you look at the timeline, it all started from 2017 or 2016. Here what Congress did wrong. Instead of dragging the Indian politics to foreign land, he could have focused on reforming Congress to make it look promising and convincing with its policies, strategies and primarily its election campaigns.’ After speaking at Cambridge, Rahul Gandhi at Indian Journalist’s Association event in London denied the defamation blame brought by BJP and said, ‘BJP likes to twist what he says and the media plays it up. But the fact of the matter is the person who defames India when he goes abroad is the Prime Minister of India’.

Currently, he has been disqualified as a parliament MP and is on interim bail after he sentenced two year of imprisonment in a 2019 defamation case. He is convicted for insulting Prime Minister in one of his remarks made in 2019. Congress party is protesting everywhere in India against the verdict and called it ‘injustice’. After acknowledging him as imprudent and careless by political expert, this verdict sounds nothing unexpected.