The Rahul Gandhi Interview
A Political Suicide committed on 27 Jan 2014 (17-Feb-14)
The ‘National Son’ of Indian Politics, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Late Sh.Rajiv Gandhi and the chair person of UPA Smt.Sonia Gandhi, decided to make his first political interview in 10 years, with none other than Mr.Arnab Goswami, a prominent Indian journalist with the Times Now news channel, who is famous for his political astuteness and skilled character assassination techniques.
To be fair to Sh.Rahul Gandhi, this being his first interview in the last 10 years, was a scripted deal; probably even intended to be an image makeover exercise. For an interview which was well scripted, not live on the air, must have definitely gone through multiple retakes and revisions, and Arnab Goswami being calm for a surprise, nothing wrong could have ever been prognosed.
Twitter Trends: #ArnabSpeaksToRahul #ComedynightswithArnab
But all that was good ended here, since hereon nothing worked to Rahul or Congress party’s favor. With political pundits terming it as a political suicide, and the country going gaga over Arnab Goswami molesting and exposing the inadequacies of the National Kid, some serious thought working needs to be done by the PR agencies of the Indian National Congress, and by far and large some skilled debating coaches need to be hired to put the much broadcasted INR 500 Cr PR fund to optimal use.
As to what went wrong- Pretty much everything!
The biggest issue was the generalization of the controversial line of questioning by Rahul and playing each one of them to a set of jumbled keywords. We no longer live in a world where politics is considered as an art of artful lying, but is more square, clear and crisp. With a country boiling on issues like corruption, communalism, growth and development, admission of a mistake by a political leader of Rahul Gandhi’s stature, is considered as a strength and probably the only way out.
#Democracy sounded like Demo-Crazy
When questioned on corruption, you need to understand that it is an individualist behavior and not something a particular party propagates. And denial of corruption when evidently the world already knows about it is considered as a sin. Leaders should take accountability, and are supposed to carry the baggage of their lineage, whether they were born at that time or not, and his runaway from the 1984 Sikh riots just proved that he is neither a leader, nor does he agree to be the face of his party’s controversial past.
Then he for sure has no right to garner the fruits of the ‘Gandhi’ surname.
Communal riots, again is a well known politically motivated conspiracy which takes its roots to the ‘Divide and Rule’ politics. An apology as a Political Leader apologizing for 1984, 2002, 2013 all together would have dodged this question. When you speak for the nation, you make yourself accountable for everything.
#Fundamental had ‘Funda’ Silent
On questions of growth and development you do not start questioning the founding pillars of the constitution, since these are volatile entities and depend a lot on the global economic factors clubbed together with the legislative approvals. And certainly Women Empowerment has nothing to do with Inflation or WPI. Women empowerment is a quintessential right and using it as a political answer to inflation proves the lame understanding of economics.
And then the Golden Question-
Sh. Narendra Modi, Prime Ministerial candidate of the opposition, a man with a proven track record of growth and governance. You should never try to avoid someone as important as Sh.Narendra Modi, rather you should capitalize on his achievements with a word of praise and respect, sounding the beacon to the world that we are in for a healthy competition and not a politically motivated maligning campaign on the grounds of communalism. Defiance of the SIT report which acquitted Sh.Narendra Modi, was just another lethargic response proving the lack of senses.
Again, to be fair to the kid, it was his first such appearance on camera, but then you can’t have all your first’s wrong when you are aiming the most powerful chair in the country.