Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has triggered fresh controversy after he sought the views of the United States on the state of freedom and democracy in India. Rahul has come under severe attack from the BJP and other quarters, including former foreign secretaries, for seeking the engagement of a third party in India’s domestic matters.
Rahul has been holding virtual interactions with professors of various US universities in the recent past and current controversy erupted following his interaction with the former US diplomat and Harvard Kennedy School Professor Nicholas Burns.
During the conversation, Burns proposed that democratic countries such as India and the US should come together to take on China and other non-democratic forces.
Rahul said that he doesn’t hear anything from the US establishment about what’s happening in India.
“If you are saying partnership of democracies, I mean what is your view on what is going on here…I fundamentally believe that America is a profound idea. The idea of freedom the way it is encapsulated in your Constitution is a very powerful idea but you have got to defend that idea. That is the real question,” said Rahul in the virtual conference held on Friday evening.
Reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s statement, BJP spokesman Sambit Patra hit out at him saying that no amount of ranting and crying is going to help him.
“No amount of your ranting & crying is going to help Mr Gandhi, for by now the world is aware of your capabilities ...they know it’s not about democracy it’s about your failed leadership! Almost akin to Mr Mani Shankar’s cry for help in Pakistan,” Patra said on Twitter.
Rahul’s former party colleague and Congress spokesperson now in BJP fold Tom Vaddakan took potshots and said how will a dynast understand the democratic system.
Rahul Gandhi also alleged a wholesale capture of India’s institutional framework by the BJP. He claimed that this has changed the paradigm in which Opposition parties operate post-2014.
“To fight elections, I need institutional structures, I need a judicial system that protects me, I need a media that is reasonably free, I need financial parity, I need a set of institutional structures that allow me to operate as a political party. I do not have them,” Rahul Gandhi claimed.
The Congress leader also received a heavy backlash on Twitter. Former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said, “Astonished he should goad the US to take adverse note of the state of democracy in India, take such hallowed view of American democracy while decrying our own and implicitly suggest India not worthy of an invitation to the summit of democracies Biden proposes. And what game Nick Burns is playing?”
Naming Rahul Gandhi as a “dynastic scion” and calling his remarks “disgusting”, investor Harsh Gupta Madhusudan said that PM Narendra Modi had become the Prime Minister “despite the express opposition of foreign especially western powers” and “because the people of India wanted him to lead”.