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'Witnessed Saddam-like time during Emergency': Minister attacks Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi made the comment while speaking to Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's comment about downgrading India's democracy by Sweden-based institute Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) has been slammed by Union minister Prakash Javadekar. Reacting to the V-Dem report, Gandhi said during an online interaction that Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi used to win elections as well.
"Giving comment on Rahul Gandhi’s opinion is worthless. Comparing India’s democracy with Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein is an insult to the 80 crore voters. Only during the year of Emergency, we witnessed a time like that of Gaddafi and Saddam," Javadekar said.
Gandhi was speaking to Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University on different issues, when he was asked about the recent report which downgraded India to an "electoral autocracy" and Freedom House analysis which shifted India's status from a 'free' country to 'partly-free.'
"Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi used to have elections. They used to win them. It wasn't like they weren't voting but there was no institutional framework to protect that vote," Rahul Gandhi said in the online interaction.
Watch: 'Even Saddam, Gaddafi won elections', says Rahul Gandhi
"Bharatiya Janata Party MPs in Parliament tell me that they cannot have an open discussion. They say they are told what to say," he further said.
The government has disproved the report by Freedom House and called it "misleading, incorrect and misplaced."
External affairs minister S Jaishankar also slammed global bodies for their "hypocrisy" and called them "self-appointed custodians of the world, who find it very difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval".
On a question on should others become leaders in the Congress, Gandhi said, "Absolutely, 100 per cent. I am more than happy to push as many leaders as possible and make as many of them successful and that is my record...that is all I do all day long. I push people and push them forward."
