Congress leaders, spokespersons, and supporters often resort to discrediting their political opponents not by criticising their work but by calling into question the authenticity of their educational qualifications and academic credentials.
Congress party’s current bete noire, PM Modi, has also been subjected to similar attacks, with the party leaders and supportive trolls routinely raising aspersions on the genuineness of his educational degrees.
Therefore, when a popular Twitter user Rishi Bagree shared an article establishing the authenticity of PM Modi’s BA and MA degrees and challenged the Congress party to furnish Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi’s educational degrees, several people echoed the demand and tagged Congress loyalists to take up the gauntlet.
Surat-based businessman Raushan Sinha, popularly known as Mr Sinha on Twitter, also took to the microblogging website to challenge Ms Supriya Shrinate, a Congress spokesperson known for exhibiting boorish demeanour and peevish disposition on news debates, to reproduce Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi’s degrees.
Hello @SupriyaShrinate, if you post Sonia Gandhi’s degrees, I’ll leave Twitter & will start doing household works at your home same like you do at 10JP… https://t.co/ztzB02CHg3
— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) March 15, 2023
Mr Sinha, who owns a plastic manufacturing company, a courier service & a gym in Surat, along with running a social media consultancy company, dared Ms Shrinate that if she posts the educational degrees of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, he will leave Twitter for good and start working as a househelp just like she does at 10 Janpath, the residence of the Gandhi family.
“Hello @SupriyaShrinate, if you post Sonia Gandhi’s degrees, I’ll leave Twitter & will start doing household works at your home same like you do at 10JP…” tweeted Mr Sinha, quoting Bagree’s tweet.
Although Mr Sinha suggested in his tweet that Ms Shrinate does household work at 10, Janpath, which is the official residence of Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi, OpIndia doesn’t vouch for the authenticity of the claim.
In all probability, Mr Sinha was making a rhetorical point while throwing the challenge and did not literally mean that Shrinate worked as a house-help for Sonia Gandhi. She was earlier a TV journalist and is known to have much higher skills than undertaking a low-skilled job as a house-help.
The many discrepancies in Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi’s educational details
Nevertheless, Mr Sinha’s challenge has underscored the hazy ambiguity over Gandhi’s educational credentials and the Congress party’s reticence in coming clean on it. Moreover, it has also spotlighted the many discrepancies in the academic details of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi filed in their election affidavits.
Studying the various nominations submitted by Rahul Gandhi in various elections, a notable difference in his educational qualification can be observed. In his affidavit, Rahul Gandhi mentioned that he cleared the senior secondary exam in 1989, earned his bachelor’s degree in 1994 and after that did M.Phil in development studies from Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1995. He had mentioned these educational qualifications in his election affidavits of 2009 and 2014 too.
But his affidavit for the 2004 Lok Sabha election tells a different story, as it only mentions his senior secondary exam from CBSE and MPhil Trinity, and has no mention of any bachelor’s degree. If we go by the 2004 affidavit of Rahul Gandhi, he did his MPhil after completing secondary school.
Earlier, Sonia Gandhi’s election affidavits also came under scrutiny for discrepancies in education details. In her 2004 affidavit, she mentioned that she had obtained a certificate in English from Lemox Cook School under Cambridge University. But later it was found that Cambridge has no such school under its affiliation. Subsequently, Sonia Gandhi mentioned it as Lemox Cook School, Cambridge in her 2009 affidavit, which means that it’s a school located in Cambridge city and not a school under the well-known university.
How Congress leaders and supporters continue to attack PM Modi over his authentic educational degrees
Devoid of any legitimate reason to corner the Centre, the Congress party keeps attacking PM Modi and his ministers by raising doubts over their academic qualifications and educational proficiency. Congress has for long attacked PM Modi and continuously demanded degree certificates from him, even though his academic documents are already in the public domain.
Tarun Das, the Delhi University Registrar, had in 2015 declared that PM Modi’s degrees shared by the BJP are authentic and that the university has all the records related to his graduation.
Congress and its sympathetic trolls have often mocked the BJP and questioned the authenticity of PM Modi’s educational degree based on the name of the course he completed: Entire Political Science. However, Gujarat University provided an explanation to the query, saying that ‘Entire Political Science’ means that the candidate has completed the whole course of M.A. (2 years) with 8 papers of Political Science subject only and not with any other allied or related subjects.
Statement of Dr Mahesh Patel, in-charge VC of Gujarat University on what ‘Entire Political Science’ means.. pic.twitter.com/BXgPudr5J1
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) May 9, 2016
“We have checked our records and it has been authenticated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s degree is authentic. He cleared the examination in 1978 and was awarded the degree in 1979,” Mr Das had said.
