In a recent interview, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan heaped praises on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Rajan blamed Rahul Gandhi’s 2014 interview with senior journalist Arnab Goswami for his “wrong portrayal” as someone incapable of thinking and leading.
On the 28th of May, in an interview with ThePrint, Raghuram Rajan was asked about his closeness with Rahul Gandhi and whether he advises the Gandhi scion. In response to this, Rajan said, “Rahul Gandhi is often depicted because of that totally disfiguring interview with Arnab Goswami way back, as someone who doesn’t have the capabilities to think and lead. I think that’s such a wrong portrayal in the sense that you know he’s smart, intelligent, and also brave. I think what people discount which they should not, is this is a family which has seen the grandmother assassinated, the father blown up,” Rajan said.
Raghuram Rajan says Arnab Goswami has destroyed Rahul Gandhi’s career because of that one interview ☠️🤣😂
— BALA (@erbmjha) May 30, 2024
Otherwise, he says, "Rahul Gandhi is smart, intelligent, and brave. He is a reasonable leader, contrary to what has been portrayed." pic.twitter.com/YkspQPy7lK
“To engage in politics, to be in the midst of crowds.. if I had that experience I would be hiding in a bed all the time. So I think there are a lot of attributes that are commendable…” Rajan added while eulogising the Gandhi scion.
In his seemingly not-so-successful bid to project Rahul Gandhi as a misunderstood ‘genius’, Rajan called Rahul Gandhi a “reasonable” leader with “strong conviction”.
When Arnab Goswami “frankly” destroyed Rahul Gandhi’s first “launch”
Interestingly, back in 2014, Rahul Gandhi gave his first-ever televised interview to the then Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami. The interview titled: Frankly Speaking With Arnab Goswami exposed the diminutive political acumen and proved to be nothing less than a disaster for Congress’s unannounced Prime Ministerial candidate. In the interview, Rahul Gandhi gave repetitive answers like RTI, Anti-Corruption Law, MNREGA, systematic failures etc and even tried to dodge Goswami’s questions about the then-Congress vice president’s views on the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, why he was avoiding a head-on contest with Modi etc. One of the most iconic moments of the interview was when Goswami asked Gandhi if it was right to seek an ‘apology from Narendra Modi for the 2002 Gujarat Riots but not apologise for the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots even as the Congress’, and Rahul Gandhi admitted involvement of some of his party leaders.
Raghuram Rajan’s admiration for Rahul Gandhi
It is interesting to note that this is not the first time that Raghuram Rajan has expressed his admiration and support for Rahul Gandhi. Back in December 2022, Rajan joined Gandhi in his controversial foot march Bharat Jodo Yatra in Rajasthan. In his admiration for Gandhi and disdain for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajan has at times resorted to spreading misinformation in the garb of criticising the Modi government’s policies like the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. Rajan back in 2016, called India a “one-eyed king in the land of the blind [Andhon mein kaana raja]” suggesting that India’s economic growth is accentuated because the global economic growth was weak.
In January last year, Raghuram Rajan described as a ‘young’, ‘curious’ and ‘smart’ man, who is in no way a “Pappu”. He said that the Congress leader has a “good sense of what the priorities are and a good sense of basic risks and being able to evaluate them…” Probably, Rajan should share his views on Rahul Gandhi’s destructive and divisive ‘priorities’ like caste ‘X-ray’ and wealth redistribution among others.
