The BJP on Tuesday dubbed Rahul Gandhi a “failed dynast” who “failed in his political journey” hours after the Congress vice-president defended the dynasty culture and cited examples of SP’s Akhilesh Yadav or Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s son Abhishek.
“The people of the country where he leads a political party no longer support him so he is expressing his pain abroad,” BJP leader and I&B Minister Smriti Irani told mediapersons.
The Congress jumped to Rahul’s defence saying criticising even the Prime Minster is acceptable in a democracy . The Congress said Rahul, in fact, “raised respect for India abroad” unlike “PM Narendra Modi’s speeches abroad in the early days when he was guilty of insulting India”.
Irani blasted Rahul at a Press conference, saying his admission that the Congress had turned arrogant since 2012 was a “big political confession” and a reflection on Sonia Gandhi, who was and remains its president. “It must be the first time that a Congress vice-president chose to taunt his party president and it is for the party to introspect on this,” she said.
“A failed dynast today chose to speak about his failed political journey in the US... The country (India) is not listening so he is speaking somewhere else,” Irani said .On Rahul’s criticism of Modi’s “reckless and dangerous” decisions like demonetisation and GST, Irani said the criticism reflected the failed strategy of the Congress leader.
“The fact that Rahul Gandhi chose to belittle the Prime Minister is not a surprise but expected... It is an indication of his failed strategy. The people of the country where he leads a political party no longer support him so he is expressing his pain abroad,” she said.She also challenged him to a public debate “without a handwritten script” over his criticism of the Modi government.
Irani, who had lost to Rahul in Amethi in the last lok Sabha poll and is seen as the BJP’s nominee in the next election as well, described the US college as a “platform of convenience” for the Congress leader. She said people should visit Amethi, his Parliamentary constituency, to see how much development he had done.
lashing out at him for his remarks on dynasties, Irani cited the examples of President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to argue that the top three constitutional positions were held by people with humble backgrounds.This was evidence that merit, not dynasty, drove India’s robust democracy, the Information and Broadcasting Minister said.
She claimed that Rahul had little awareness about the lack of propriety in criticising his country on foreign soil as he was driven by “boosting his own image not patriotism”. In an apparent reference to Rahul’s meeting with the Chinese envoy in India during the Dokalam stand-off, she said he had not spoken to the Indian diaspora or officials but chosen “to converse with a foreign power”.
To his criticism of the Modi Government’s handling of Kashmir, she accused him of indulging in politics and said it was the Nehru-Gandhi family which had passed on a “legacy of challenges” to the country.
In its riposte, Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said BJP leaders’ comments “betray their streak of intolerance towards criticism”, which he added is reflected in the climate in the country today.”Rahul Gandhi spoke about the proud achievements of India since independence. Thanks to Nehru’s vision and successive administrations, institutions of the modern state and educational institutions of excellence have been set up, we became a nuclear power,” said Sharma recounting Rahul’s speech in Berkeley.Because he spoke of these things, Sharma said, Rahul “increased respect for India” abroad.