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.
https://twitter.com/sardesairajdeep/status/907461410292211717
Which is quite contradictory to what had actually happened there.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/907437772297854977
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.
https://twitter.com/AFixedPoint_/status/907835269449216001
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.
https://twitter.com/sardesairajdeep/status/907637380366127107
Except, that’s not how it happened.
https://twitter.com/mano_soham/status/907637838765629441
https://twitter.com/TheChanakyan/status/907644493741965312
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.
https://twitter.com/priyankac19/status/907493395022716928
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.
https://twitter.com/sardesairajdeep/status/907568275822956545
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.