Asked nobody to intervene, Rahul Gandhi clarifies on his London remarks

Rahul Gandhi on Saturday spoke about his remarks on Indian democracy in London at a parliamentary panel meet and said that he did not ask any other country to intervene in India. He said that he only raised questions about India’s democracy and that could not be labelled “anti-national”.

At a Parliamentary Consultative Committee, chaired by the External Affairs Ministry, Rahul Gandhi told the leaders present that he believes this is an internal matter and they will solve it, says an NDTV report.

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The meeting, attended by external affairs minister S Jaishankar, was called for discussing India’s G20 presidency. Later during the proceedings, Rahul Gandhi responded when a MP raised the issue of political leaders trying to score brownie points by talking about Indian democracy on foreign land.

Heated to and fro

BJP MPs in the committee countered him by saying that the parliamentary panel meeting was not the appropriate platform to speak on this topic, while many opposition MPs supported Rahul Gandhi’s right to clarify or defend himself given the oblique reference in the meeting to his remarks made during his London visit.

As the argument got heated up, Jaishankar stopped Rahul Gandhi from replying to these statements and told all the leaders to say these things in the Parliament. He asked the Wayanad MP to speak only on the subject of the committee and not political topics.

Rahul’s London comments

Rahul Gandhi’s comments in London regarding Indian democracy have resulted in a huge row with at least four Union ministers demanding his apology. The first week of the Budget session’s second leg has been washed out due to protests and sloganeering in both houses.

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At Cambridge University, he had said “The institutional framework which is required for democracy — Parliament, free press, and the judiciary, just the idea of mobilisation, and moving around all are getting constrained. So, we are facing an attack on the basic structure of Indian democracy.”