UP lawyer demands FIR against Obama, says references to Rahul, Manmohan in book humiliating

LUCKNOW: Even as the references to Indian political leaders in a book by Barack Obama are making headlines in the country, a petition has been filed by a Pratapgarh-based lawyer Gyan Prakash Shukla in the Lalganj civil court seeking registration of an FIR against the former US President here on Thursday.

Shukla, a Congress supporter, petitioned the court over what he termed 'insults' to former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and ex-PM Manmohan Singh in the book The Promised Land written by Obama.

The court has posted the hearing over the maintainability of the petition for December 1, 2020.

According to the petition, former US President Barack Obama has said in his memoir that Sonia Gandhi picked Dr Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister of India because he posed no political threat to her son Rahul Gandhi whom she had been grooming as her heir apparent.

In the petition, the petitioner, who claims to be national president of the All India Rural Bar Association, has demanded that an FIR be lodged as the book “insulted” the leaders and hurt the sentiments of their followers.

The petitioner called Obama’s references to Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi in his book humiliating as well as an attack on the sovereignty of India.

He claimed that these leaders had millions of supporters and they felt hurt by the remarks made by the former US president in his book. He warned that if the FIR was not lodged, he along with his supporters would stage a fast outside the US embassy in New Delhi.

In his book, Obama, has remembered Manmohan Singh as a “man with uncommon wisdom” and also mentioned that Singh owed his position to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Referring to Rahul Gandhi, the former US president has written: “Rahul Gandhi has a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if, he were a student who'd done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject.”