Frankly speaking: It’s total non-sense!

There were questions on this Rahul Gandhi interview and there were answers but I am still searching for a connection between the two. Probably this is how Arnab and the viewers felt after the interview got over.

 

The 500 crore mega budget set aside to change his image has only dented it further. The Japanese ad firm must be wondering that they completely fucked themselves just for the greed of 500 crore and might need an image makeover consultant themselves post 2014 elections! Unfortunately or fortunately we have seen two kinds of people in the congress one that does not open his mouth and the other when he opens speaks only rubbish and crap. Anyways jokes apart (well there are a lot more down the article) let’s get into what Mr. Gandhi had to say.

In his first proper one-on-one TV interview that has taken ten years to come, Rahul Gandhi did little to change his image as a politician who appears to be sincere – but not-so-sincere if you scratch the surface. Despite being vice president and heir apparent of the grand old party, the Shehzada continued to pretend to be an outsider to the "system" as if the system wasn't made and formed by his party and his family, or as if his party hasn't been presided over “the system” for the last ten years.

In the one hour interview Rahul Gandhi kept using only empowerment, RTI, MNREGA. He said the word "youth" several times and the word “women” even more frequently. He was just lost, had no answers to defend himself or his party. Question where asked on all the issues from 1984 riots to recent election results and all his answers were blunt, inaccurate, and made no sense. Look at some of his answers below

Do you feel overwhelmed by loss, by defeat, because you’ve had quite a few of late? How have you dealt with it? 
...I’m here because I want to help use the energy of this country. I want to make this country powerful... I think there are basically three things one needs to do. One is change the way we do politics — getting away from superficialities, from small issues...look at things like RTI, Lokpal, how we choose candidates. Second is empowering women...and third is using the energy of the youth of this country, bringing in jobs they need...I don’t go into an election thinking if we lose it’s the end of the world. We lose some elections, we win some elections. The real thing is that it’s a heart thing. It’s a soul thing... I’m sitting here because I feel with all my heart we need to change the system here... 

Will you have a debate with Narender Modi if he agrees...? 
I’m debating these issues by building structures in Congress... You have to start that debate. As far as I’m concerned, the debate is taking place.

Have you made any sense out of these answers? If you did hats off to you! Moving on For all his claims of empowering the people, deepening democracy and his criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party for centralising power in the figure of Narender Modi, however, Gandhi kept on talking the same old rhetoric about the Green Revolution to the Right to Information law, MNREGA, etc Rahul’s response to all those charges was simply to duck and recite homilies about empowering women. He tried to set himself up as the outsider when in fact he is the prince, not the pauper.He failed to tell what the voters want to know? What his party's government did when it was rewarded with a second term in 2009. Gandhi’s best reply was that the Congress introduced the Lokpal, and other anti-corruption and transparency bills pending in Parliament. But these measures were too little too late, and they were the result of a popular agitation led by Arvind Kejriwal. Gandhi’s bullet points on having built more highways than the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and having fostered fast economic growth stood in contrast to his poor answers on why action hadn’t been taken against corrupt officials from the Congress.

Gandhi went on and on about changing the system. This has been his motif for the last few weeks. By his own admission, he's been copying the Aam Aadmi Party. But when Gandhi says he wants to "unleash the power of... women", he does not realise he is still following the top-down model of governance. In Gandhi's worldview, he will empower we the people. By contrast, the Aam Aadmi Party says it represents the people who want to empower themselves. (The BJP says it wants to get rid the country of a party which is run by a family that decides in its wisdom that it must empower the people.)

Gandhi's claims of empowering the people, democratising the system and bringing transparency would actually have some substance if he was able to walk the talk. When asked about whether the Congress would form an alliance with the convicted Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar for the May elections, Gandhi blamed the "seniors" in the party for that decision. He says:

Lalu Prasad was convicted on September 30, 2013, in the fodder scam case. Will you still enter into a political arrangement with him? Will you make that compromise? 
These decisions of the Congress are made by senior leaders.
You are the boss. 
Our alliance in Bihar is with a party, not an individual. It’s not certain we are going to make an alliance, we are in process of talking to people and our alliance is within idea, with a party, not an individual. 

 His hypocrisy is exposed here, given that he is the second-most-senior office bearer of the Congress. Similarly on the corruption charges against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and former Maharashtra Congressman Ashok Chavan, Gandhi wasn't able to show that he means what he says. He also said that youth will be given more opportunity but look at the irony on the very same day his party nominated to the Rajya Sabha Motilal Vohra, a politician born in 1928 it must have died a million deaths. I also was amused on why were question relating to Rober Vadera not asked? This is the problem with congress there double speak and double standard they want to take the credit for the good but don’t want to be blamed for the bad.

Being fare to him one thing full credit goes to him for at least opened up to the media and tried to answer direct answers one particular answer that I liked is

You will win the election? 
Yeah, I will win the election. 
And if you don’t win do you take full responsibility for it?
If we don’t win, I am the VP of the party. Of course I will take responsibility for it. 

Throughout the interview he did not make eye contacts with Arnab, his shoulders where dropping, he looked tensed, fumbling on his thoughts, poorly prepaid for the interview in what could have really made a impact on the people if he was more sensible and used some brains  in tackling the questions. In the end after some 100 questions, the nation got to know many things from Rahul Gandhi. It’s just that most of them were not answers to questions Arnab asked.

 Frankly speaking: it was a total non-sense!