NEW DELHI: Congress leaders hit out at former US president Barack Obama for referring to Rahul Gandhi as a “nervous” leader in his book, though the party did not make any official 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. In the past, a leader has been called psychopath and master divider by people and agencies. We didn’t acknowledge such comments!” said Congress media department chief R S Surjewala.
However, party leaders expressed anguish with MP Manickam Tagore saying Obama’s judgement about Gandhi is not acceptable to any Indian.
“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.
Acharya Pramod Krishnan said Obama had hurt the sentiments of crores of Congress workers.
In his memoir, A Promised Land, Obama has talked about political leaders from around the world. On Gandhi, Obama says he 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,” according to a review in The New York Times.