Rahul Gandhi is back in town from Europe, where he had gone for yet another vacation, details of which are unknown to Indian media. As a comeback announcement, Rahul chose to take up some events like speaking at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and a Padyatra in Mumbai.
Even though he might have tried his best, he failed to make any impression. Firstly, his speech was littered with parts which ranged from the inaccurate to the outright bizarre.
At one point Rahul Gandhi lamented that the BJP, Jaitley and Modi blocked GST in Parliament for 7 years. Surely he knows Modi is in the parliament only now, but we can skip this minor gaffe. Secondly, his claim of 7 years of blockage is all but foolish. Considering that UPA left power in 2014, BJP must have blocked the bill from 2007 onward, for Rahul’s claim to be true. But fact is, the constitutional amendment bill for GST was first introduced by UPA in the parliament only as late as 2011, which was sent to a select committee. So if at all any party could block it in the Parliament, it is after 2011, not 2007. Lastly, Rahul Gandhi also deliberately hid vital information that even in the last one year of UPA, at least 5 Non-BJP states had voiced their opposition to the UPA’s GST bill, and out of these, 3 states were Congress ruled states.
Later Rahul Gandhi commented that the Government was not focussing on farmers. Maybe due to his vacation, Rahul was not aware that just 3 days back, PM Modi had launched an all-encompassing Crop Insurance scheme. A bit of homework would have helped here.
Moving on to the bizarre, Rahul Gandhi said one should now put labels on people, probably forgetting his own labels like “suit-boot ki sarkaar”
And the next bit is beyond explanation, you have to see what he actually said and try to make sense:
https://twitter.com/RevolutionMonk/status/688276989719912449
After this, he moved on to his padyatra through Mumbai and as expected, it caused a massive traffic problem in Mumbai. A move which was supposed to connect him to people actually earned him large scale hate from the millions of people stuck in jams caused by his event. A few of them vented their frustrations online:
https://twitter.com/anshitripathi/status/688269318744768512
https://twitter.com/nivie/status/688289778798743552
All said and done, Rahul Gandhi has scored another self- goal here. We don’t know where Rahul Gandhi went in Europe and what he did, but he might have had some really good stuff there.