Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was caught off guard during his interaction with the Indian Journalists’ Association in London on Saturday when a veteran scribe in the audience reminded him of the time Indira Gandhi refused to speak negatively of India during her UK visit, post arrest by Morarji Desai government.
Suresh Gupta currently Executive Editor of New World Newspaper worked for All India Radio and was in close contact with both Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Calling himself a well-wisher of Rahul Gandhi, Gupta said that he should learn something from her grandmother’s conduct and asked if he had anything good to say about the current government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Your grandmother was like an elder sister to me. She helped me a great deal and she was a wonderful woman. When she came here to a press conference in London, after being imprisoned by Morarji Desai, a journalist asked her what is your experience in prison in India and she said I will not speak anything negative about India in this conference,” he said.
“You are being constantly attacked by the media for your Cambridge speech. I hope you will take some lesson from what Indira Gandhi said because I am your well-wisher and I would like to see you become Prime Minister one day,” he added.
The Congress MP from Wayanad was dismissive of Gupta’s questions and said that he should first go and watch his Cambridge speech and then form an opinion about it, creating momentary discomfort in the room. The MC for the event cut off Gupta by asking “what’s your question? Do you have a question?”
During his interaction, Rahul Gandhi spoke about the controversy over the banning of the BBC documentary, the government’s handling of Chinese aggression at the border, his experiences during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Opposition unity, and the row over his Cambridge lecture. He continued to criticize Indian democracy and the BJP-RSS for changing the “fundamental democratic structure of India”.