Congress president Rahul Gandhi has Singapore audience in splits

NEW DELHI: An Indian-origin economist in Singapore is threatening to take the Congress to court over a tweet it posted of party president Rahul Gandhi's interaction at a university in the city state.

The clip the party posted juxtaposes an audience question critical of the Congress with a second one - an audience comment really - heaping praise on it, and then shows Rahul's answer - a rather humorous answer - to the second question.


The man who asked the first question is Prasenjit Basu, an economist and author of a book called 'Asia Reborn:' He's the one peeved that the Congress posted a video that shows his question but not Rahul's answer to his question.

The video isn't exactly doctored, but Basu calls it "a classic fake-news video". The Congress didn't even censor Basu's critical question, it just chose to highlight an answer that Rahul gave later in his interaction, which referred to Basu's question. The author though believes the Congress is using his image to "falsely advertise" the party President.

"Withdraw this false video, or prepare for prosecution in Singapore's courts!", tweeted an irate-sounding Basu.


This was the question Basu asked: "Why is it that during the years that your family ruled India, India's per capita income was growing less than the world average? And yet, in the years since your family relinquished the prime ministership of India, India's per capita income has grown substantially faster than the world average?"

In its video clip of the interaction, the Congress cuts after this to a comment about Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress.

"I am a great admirer of your great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru and I think all the good things… wherever India is today, it's because of the Congress," this audience member said.

The clip then shows Rahul's rather humorous response to a comment even he recognised for its fawning tone.

"You are both going to extremes. I mean give me something in the middle. I mean, he's (Basu's) saying I am the cause of every single problem. And you are saying I'm the cause of every single solution. I mean, this is crazy," said Rahul.

The Congress president then said that these extreme views reflected how polarised India has become.

"This conversation shows you the polarisation. That gentleman (Basu) thinks that nothing has ever been done by the Congress party. This gentleman (second speaker) thinks that everything has been done by the Congress party," said Rahul as the audience burst out laughing.

The Congress president also got in a dig at Basu, as he explained that he believes India's success is due to its people and not because of the Congress or despite of it.

"Let me tell you what the truth is. India's success is hugely because of India's people. However, anybody in this room who thinks that the Congress party is not part of that success…thinks liberalisation wasn't a success...green revolution was not a success ...needs to write a new book," he said, very likely referring to Basu, whose book was published in September last year.

In his answer, the Congress president also trained his guns on Narendra Modi, and took a subtle dig at him by offering to hug Basu. The Congress has often been critical of what it calls Modi's "hugplomacy" - the PM's fondness for hugging other world leaders.

"I am proud to sit in a room and have a gentleman say this (critical comments) to me. Now, there's something else... Mr. Narendra Modi would never do that. You would never have the ability to say what you said to me in front of Mr. Narendra Modi and am absolutely blazingly proud of that," said Rahul.

"After this meeting I want to give you a hug and say you are very important to me," he added.