While Opposition parties and some sections of the social media were quick to criticise Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi after his first major televised interview on Monday night, his party defended him vigorously.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said Mr. Gandhi had displayed “honesty of purpose, sincerity, passion, and commitment to change the system.”
“He is quite unlike some persons in politics who speak with a forked tongue, are self-centred and have illusions of infallibility,” Mr. Singhvi said in a veiled reference to Gujarat Chief Minister and BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Party general secretary Digvijaya Singh said that while Mr. Gandhi “stood his ground and put his point across,” Mr. Modi walked out of a TV interview when difficult questions were posed.
Mr. Singhvi pointed out that both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi had apologised for the anti-Sikh riots. But no one in the BJP had, to date, expressed regret for the Gujarat riots.
There were 482 convictions for the 1984 riots, and the political careers of senior Congressmen were adversely affected, he said.
Noting that Mr. Gandhi had “walked the talk” on opening up the system by holding elections in the Youth Congress, he said the BJP did not have a comparable process.
