Rahul Gandhi has faced incipient resentment within Congress in recent months. (Archive)
Pune:
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi appears to lack the “consistency” necessary to be accepted by the country as its leader, Maharashtra party ally Sharad Pawar, head of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), said on Thursday.
“There are some questions about it. There seems to be less coherence,” Pawar said when asked if the country was ready to accept Rahul Gandhi as its leader, at an event organized by the Marathi newspaper Lokmat, according to the PTI news agency.
However, Pawar objected to former US President Barack Obama’s unflattering remarks about the congressional leader.
Obama, in his recently released memoir “A Promised Land,” said that the congressional leader had “a nervous and reportless quality” and appeared to be like a student eager to impress the teacher, but lacking the aptitude and passion to master the subject.
When asked about this, Mr. Pawar said that it was not necessary to accept everyone’s opinion.
“I can say anything about leadership in our country. But I will not talk about leadership in another country. One must maintain that limit … I think Obama crossed that limit,” he said. Before Pawar, the other congressional ally in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena, had condemned Obama’s comments as “disgusting.”
When asked about the future of Congress and whether Rahul Gandhi was becoming an “obstacle” for the party, Pawar said that the leadership of any party depends on the kind of acceptance it has within the organization.
“Although I had differences with (the head of Congress) Sonia Gandhi and the family, even today the congressmen feel affection for the Gandhi-Nehru family,” said the head of the NCP, who resigned from Congress on the issue of leadership two decades ago.
Rahul Gandhi, who resigned as leader of Congress after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second consecutive debacle against the BJP in last year’s national elections, has faced backbreaks of dissent within the party in recent months that have been reinforced. for the disastrous results in Bihar last month.
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