IANS & iNDICA NEWS BUREAU
The Congress party refused to comment officially on Friday, after a New York Times review said Barack Obama had referred to the party’s Rahul Gandhi as having a “nervous, unformed” quality.
In his new book, A Promised Land, Obama seems to land a sharp left hook on Rahul Gandhi’s “nervous, uninformed quality” while directing warm, not-so-political praise at Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi, according to a book review Thursday in The New York Times.
“Rahul Gandhi has a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject,” the reviewer wrote.
Rahul Gandhi had met Obama on many occasions, the first being in November 2010 when Rahul was general secretary of the party. And second was when Obama visited India in 2017, said sources.
The Congress party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala refused to comment.
“May I humbly remind certain overzealous friends of the media running a sponsored agenda that we don’t comment on the individual’s views in a book,” Surjewala said.
“In the past, a leader has been called ‘psychopath’ and ‘master divider’ by people and agencies. We didn’t acknowledge such comments!” he added, his comments obviously aimed at Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
A few Congress party leaders, however, did speak out against Obama.
“Mr Obama, no one can know the personality of any person in 5 to 10 minutes. Sometimes it takes years. You are wrong to judge the personality of Rahul Gandhi ji. You will bite the dust, just wait for some time,” said Udit Raj, a party spokesperson.
Congress leader Archana Dalmia tweeted: “We don’t need a Barack Obama to pass a judgment on ‘Our Leader’ Rahul Gandhi.”
Another leader, Acharya Pramod Krishnan, said: “He has hurt the sentiments of crores of Congress workers who consider Rahul Gandhi as God…. how did Obama knew that he is a bad student, was he with him in the class?”
