The Fantasies Of Rahul Gandhi

I seriously wonder if Rahul Gandhi had even heard of a place called Bhatta-Parsaul a few months ago. The agitation there was quite tempting for him to go out there and demonstrate his deep concern for the plight of farmers. “I am ashamed to be called an Indian after seeing the atrocities. Congress will not budge from here till the demands are met..” he had said. Really? Well, if it’s any comfort there are many people in this country who feel that way too after all the scams Rahul’s Congress has heaped on this nation. But never mind that.

First, I am not sure Rahul Gandhi was inspired by his own conscience to rush to Greater Noida and be the saviour of farmers. That left me wondering where he derived his inspiration from. That was answered by the pics that have been up everywhere. See a familiar face? Yes, that would be the ‘royal’ farmer Digvijay Singh. The mentor and the ‘Apt Pupil’!

Now then, that is where Rahul’s imagination runs riot. He narrates stories of women being raped by police, people being burnt alive and so on. Violent agitation does cause damage to property and injuries and even deaths. His allegation, however, was that it was the police that heaped all the cruelties. And you know what? He even collected proof, pictures and selected a bunch of farmers to have a meeting with the PM.

Our news channels were quite conflicted as to which event they should cover. The drama of the Karnataka crises or the fantasies of Rahul Gandhi. In any case they had a great time between the Amul Yuvraj and the disturbing Hansraj. Suddenly, today there are news reports that much of what Rahul Gandhi stated was an exaggeration and not exactly entirely accurate. To that his mentor, Diggy and other Congress spokespersons, suggest that Rahul only repeated what he was told by the villagers. Of course, we already know that! Rahul only repeats what he’s been told. Do you seriously expect Rahul to say anything of his own?

One of the sound practices in management is to never rely too much on ‘second-hand’ news. If indeed one gets ‘second-hand’ news then some basic verification and corroboration is undertaken. Well, I don’t think they teach this at Harvard or Cambridge where Rahul Gandhi is reported to have studied. They also don’t teach this at journalistic schools I suppose. Our media simply belted out Rahul’s biggest hits of Bhatta-Parsaul without even a primary verification.

And now, it all comes tumbling down. A CNN-IBN report (and my compliments to them) has reversed much of the extra-ordinary allegations that Rahul Gandhi had hurled.  (Did Rahul Gandhi mislead the PM?) Typically, the Congress now says Rahul was misquoted and blah, blah, blah and another big blah.

No surprises here. I had sometime ago suggested that the Congress had long back changed a slogan. It remains ‘ShityamevaJayate’! And yes, they can count on the media to follow suit.