In an interview given to Ashutosh Varshney, the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi compared the present state of Indian democracy under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
In response, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that such a comparison of Indian democracy with Qaddafi’s Libya and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was an insult to 80 crore Indian voters.
“Giving comment on Rahul Gandhi’s opinion is worthless. Comparing India’s democracy with Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein is an insult to the 80 crore voters. Only during the year of emergency, we witnessed a time like that of Qaddafi and Saddam”, Javadekar was quoted as saying by ANI.
Giving comment on Rahul Gandhi’s opinion is worthless. Comparing India’s democracy with Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein is an insult to the 80 crore voters. Only during the year of emergency, we witnessed a time like that of Gaddafi and Saddam: Union Minister Prakash Javadekar pic.twitter.com/ncqkxbuFPj
— ANI (@ANI) March 17, 2021
The scion of the Nehru Gandhi family had claimed that India was “no longer a democratic country”. In the interview with Ashutosh Varshney, Gandhi had said, “Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi used to have elections. They used to win them. It wasn’t like they weren’t voting but there was no institutional framework to protect that vote.”
“An election is not simply people going and pressing a button on a voting machine. An election is about narrative. An election is about institutions that make sure that the framework in the country is operating properly, an election is about the judiciary being fair and a debate taking place in parliament. So you need those things for a vote to count,” Gandhi said.
Rahul Gandhi also strongly defended the centrality of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the Congress party and added that it was important to protect a certain ideology in the party. He said that he would not give up just because someone else does not like it.
He said that he would continue to fight the BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and then went on to compare the RSS with the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamic organisation active in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and North America.
Furthermore, Gandhi stated that the schools run by the RSS were like the madrasas in Pakistan, both producing radicals.
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