Rahul Gandhi’s elevation Israel a genuine friend
Rahul Gandhi ( pictured) is all set to don the mantle as Congress president. His pending elevation, confirmed by the Congress Working Committee, goes to vindicate Mani Shankar Aiyar’s candid confession that “there is nobody else in the Congress party to be its PM candidate”. On taking over the leadership from his mother who has been the longestserving party president, Gandhi will become the face of the Congress. Given the Gandhi glitz, he will be the party’s undisputed leader. At a time when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is working for a Congress- mukt Bharat, he has the Herculean task of reviving and rejuvenating the Congress to restore its status of the “natural party of government” in its heyday. He is pitched as the party’s best hope of recapturing the pre-eminence it enjoyed for decades since Independence.
For all the unfair characterisation of him, Gandhi represents value-based politics and swears by India’s pluralism and diversity as the country’s unalterable feature. India is so vast and varied that it is indeed a patchwork quilt. In Gandhi we have a leader who believes in the space to accommodate disparate peoples and can hold them all together. His public-spiritedness and concern for the impoverished masses, coupled with his clear-headedness and breadth of vision, qualify him to lead the party and the nation. It is significant that he is taking over the party’s reins at a time when the incumbent prime minister’s popularity is on the wane despite the results of biased opinion polls to the contrary.
Gandhi is a foil to Narendra Modi and The decision of the ministry of defence to scrap the missile deal with Israel has been taken keeping national interests in mind, and therefore, deserves to be welcomed. However, it must be remembered that the Jewish state happens to be the largest arms supplier to India and can be described as a genuine friend of the country, unlike some others who despite outwardly projecting to be well-wishers help Pakistan to wage a clandestine war against us. Jerusalem’s expertise in handling Islamic terrorism has come in handy for India in tackling the menace in Jammu and Kashmir.
Arun Malankar Mumbai