The 'Blazing Questions' RaGa Has Still Not Been Asked?

By M H Ahssan | INN Live

In a coming-of-age moment, the Congress vice-president recently shed his air of reclusion and gave two detailed interviews to INN Live, Dainik Bhaskar and Times Now respectively. In India, top politicians rarely speak to the media. While the three interviews have received many brickbats and fewer bouquets, there are many questions Rahul Gandhi hasn’t yet fielded. Here are 25 of them for starters:

1. Rahul Gandhi, your brother-in-law Robert Vadra has been accused of taking financial favours from real estate giant DLF and making windfall gains from the purchase and sale of land in Haryana. Despite the ‘clean chit’ by the Haryana government, has this ‘private deal’ put the spotlight on your family and caused embarrassment to the Congress? What do you propose to do about it?
2. A recent news report in The Indian Express has revealed, via RTI, that you gifted land (near Robert Vadra’s properties in Haryana) to your sister Priyanka Vadra Gandhi in 2012. Is the continuing controversy over Vadra’s land dealings behind this decision?
3.  Rahul, you have recently clarified that Priyanka will not play an active role in politics. How do you feel when your sister’s name is constantly invoked as a ‘better’ and ‘more natural’ politician than you?
4. Does Robert Vadra really deserve the privilege of not being frisked at India’s domestic airports merely because his wife Priyanka is entitled to it as a person protected by the Special Protection Group?
5. Do you feel the health of top politicians should be made public in the wider interest of the proper functioning of a large and complex democracy? We are referring here to reports about the medical health of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
6. What do you have to say about Rajiv Gandhi’s controversial remark, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes”, seen widely as a justification for the anti-Sikh riots in 1984?
7. Even though you have resisted falling prey to a prime ministerial candidate tag, you have indeed come out politically over the past few months. Is this decision a function of the rise of the BJP’s Narendra Modi and his appointment as a PM candidate?
8. After 10 years in power, the Congress’s star appears to be fading in the recent assembly elections under your leadership. If you were in a corporate job, would you have been promoted to vice-president with such a record?
9. While you have talked about changing the system and setting up processes, more clarity is required. How would you describe your political ideology in one word? Also, which politicians, other than the ones you’re related to, have been your inspiration?
10. If you are truly for empowerment of women—as you argued repeatedly during your recent outing in a TV interview—why don’t you get the Lok Sabha to pass the women’s reservation bill?
11. To scotch the dynasty-versus-democracy debate, wouldn’t you have acquired greater credibility by first becoming an MLA, then chief minister of a state or a junior cabinet minister? Why have you shied away from government?
12. Similarly, why do you choose to not speak out (in Parliament and outside) on the issues of the day—from Telangana and price rise to corruption and Naxalism? Isn’t politics about immediacy as well as the future? Hasn’t the UPA’s image suffered because of inaction on corruption, to begin with? What have you done about it?
13. You talk of ushering in merit in the Congress. How come most junior ministers and new Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs—Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, Milind Deora—are largely the children of older Congress leaders?
14. All the talk about changing the political system is belied by decisions on the ground. For instance, by choosing loyalists like Digvijay Singh, Sanjay Singh, Madhusudan Mistry and Kumari Selja for the recent Rajya Sabha elections, haven’t you ceded the high moral ground? Similarly, if Congress is against candidates who parachute into constituencies at election time, should Aadhar man Nandan Nilekani be denied Bangalore South?
15.  Rahul Gandhi, what are your views on the Lal Batti and security culture around politicians? The humbling of politicians and their trappings of power has become a big issue across urban India. Do you think the attack by political parties like Aam Aadmi Party on these symbols of power is justified and necessary? What have you done in the Congress to reduce the role these play, particularly with official houses, access by Members of Parliament to airports and personal security?
16. Assume a future when you as India’s Prime Minister are in the United Nations and about to meet the President of the United States, and the Congress vice-president tears up an ordinance in a press conference back home. How would you react?
17. How would you react to a hypothetical—but very probable—cross-border skirmish with Pakistan, or even a repeat of the Kandahar hijack of an Indian Airlines flight?
18. Do you regret your comment to the United States ambassador, revealed in a Wikileaks cable, on Hindu extremists being a greater threat to India than Islamic militants?
19. Do you feel India should enter into a strategic alliance with the United States? Or should it continue to try marking its presence as a counter to China in Southeast Asia on its own?
20. Recently, you told an industry association that there were too many regulations and loopholes before business. A few days later, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan lost her job, and a slew of pending projects has been cleared by the UPA subsequently. What has changed so dramatically over the past few weeks? Are the charges of corruption against the former environment minister true? And if Vedanta’s proposal was not fine (you lobbied furiously against it), why is Posco’s okay?
21. Where do you stand on major economic debates of the day, as the mismanagement of the economy seems to be taking centrestage before the 2014 elections? What is your view about the UPA’s stewardship of the economy in the past few years? And where do you stand in that much publicised debate between economists Jagdish Bhagwati and Amartya Sen on growth versus development?
22. Recent opinion polls show pockets of resentment against the Congress even in your long-held family constituencies Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh. In the state and elsewhere, the Muslims appear disenchanted with the Congress, accusing it of using the community as a vote bank and not doing enough for them. Does all this worry you? What would you say to the Muslims?
23. Are you not embarrassed by the relentless naming of central and state government programmes and institutions after three members of your family—Rajiv, Indira, and Nehru? According to one estimate, there are at least 450 such instances. When will this stop?
24. At 43, Arvind Kejriwal is already a former Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer and the chief minister of Delhi. You,  Gandhi, are exactly his age—do you feel a sense of under-achievement in your career thus far?
25. Finally, two personal questions. What are your religious beliefs? And will you marry an Indian woman?