Speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, yesterday, Rahul Gandhi had defended dynasty politics as accepted way in democratic India. However, the League of Dynasty Defenders were armed to take on any criticism that comes Rahul Gandhi’s way.
To @OfficeOfRG credit took all questions from students, some discomfiting. ALL leaders must do likewise in India! No one way talk! #RGInUS
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 12, 2017
Which is quite contradictory to what had actually happened there.
A lady from crowd heckles moderators at Rahul Gandhi prog ,”how is this free speech if you are controlling what is being asked?” #UCBerkeley
— ANI (@ANI) September 12, 2017
A lady in the audience wanted to ask Rahul Gandhi a question, but was not allowed to do so by the moderators who were asking only filtered questions.
How the post truth world looks like. pic.twitter.com/h1FtPsc4LA
— A Fixed Point (@AFixedPoint_) September 13, 2017
While Sardesai claimed that Gandhi took all the questions in Berkeley and how other leaders should also do the same, Twitterati pointed out how that was not really the case. Those who saw the interview said how the audience was not allowed to ask the question directly, but a moderator would do so, which is not usually the case whenever a talk is hosted at UC Berkeley.
Sardesai then tried to spin it by quoting a professor who was supposedly present at the event saying the question the woman was asking was already asked.
Prof Chibber of Berkeley Univ: town hall with @OfficeOfRG was not scripted; person who objected was asking qs that had already been asked.
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 12, 2017
Except, that’s not how it happened.
Ha ha.. everyone have heard.. before asking question she is stopped.. it was similar to sardesai’s past interview of Madam Sonia..
— Manoranjan Sahoo (@mano_soham) September 12, 2017
Before she asked, they knew what her question was.
Remember Minority Report? Now you know that was Artificial Intelligence?
— Vishnu Gupt (@TheChanakyan) September 12, 2017
However, he got called out and Rahul Gandhi’s talk was compared to Sardesai’s interview with Sonia Gandhi which had soft questions like when did Sonia Gandhi first meet Indira Gandhi.
Ironically, Sardesai’s support failed to impress Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi, who shared a screenshot of WhatsApp forward.
This interesting bit about newsrooms tonight from a friend. So true and apt! #Dynasty #Nepotism #RGinUS pic.twitter.com/xm1psHmFaD
— Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) September 12, 2017
Sardesai, who seemed miffed at his father and father in law (Sagarika Ghose’s father, Bhaskar Ghose, is former Director General of Doordarshan) dragged into the controversy on nepotism, responded how his father being a cricketer didn’t quite ensure that he could become a cricketer as well as merit mattered, not surname.
my father was in a profession where merit mattered, not surname. In cricket, you can’t play for India only bec your father did!
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 12, 2017
Also important to note here is that Sardesai’s wife Sagarika Ghose has recently written a book on Indira Gandhi calling her most powerful Prime Minister of India.
