Rahul Gandhi better than Narendra Modi

Rahul Gandhi's speech and Q&A at Berkeley

• At UC Berkeley, on Sep 11, 2017, Rahul Gandhi critiqued the Government of India without resorting to insult or abuse.
• Rahul was so disarmingly candid that the BJP government in Lutyens Delhi panicked and held a press conference to hurl personal insults at him. 
• The final straw was the assassination of activist-rationalist-journalist Gauri Lankesh. It was  a planned murder by a trained shooter. Enough is enough. The gang in power must go.
• Rahul is better than Modi and for that matter 'anyone is better than Modi'.
• Rahul will lead the next government, given Modi's self-inflicted fatal injury of demonetisation that has pushed the economy into free fall, and given Modi's broken promises of job creation.
• Rahul Gandhi is more dignified than the crass and nasty Modi. 
• It is obvious to increasingly more voters that Modi's taunts and abuses were mistaken in 2014 for toughness and determination.
• Modi's reliance on clever acronyms makes clear his disdain for wisdom. 
• Demonetisation was not deliberated or calibrated, but an ill-advised move that Modi blindly jumped into.
• Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan felt that demonetisation would hurt the economy in the short-run without long-run benefits and was not offered the usual two-year extension of tenure; Modi prefers his own decisiveness to expert advice.
• Calling Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi "pappu" or "shehzada" does not behove someone occupying the Prime Minister's position. It is learnt that Modi has appointed 20 IT professionals to attack Rahul Gandhi in synchronised fashion, which is an act done in frustration.
• The BJP rumour machine manufactures lies about Rahul (and he mentioned this at Berkeley). They say he is disinterested, he is reluctant, he would rather holiday abroad, that his sister is smarter, etc. The nastiest lies have been disproved in court, but unemployed trolls like Subramanian Swamy nevertheless continually recirculate them. To Rahul's credit, he does not get bogged down countering each and every bit of calumny.
• BJP leaders had no right to attack the Congress, especially Rahul Gandhi, because the "ancestors of BJP" were working in connivance with the British Whereas Rahul's ancestors were fighting for independence of India and were jailed for prolonged periods.
• Rahul is basically an introvert. This is a fact of life. Some humans are introverts. Despite being an introvert, he still manages to attempt a shake-up of India's oldest political party or to address massive election rallies.
• He's not a bully. At Berkeley, he honestly answered questions from the audience. Modi, on the other hand, doesn't even meet the press, disparaging the media with such vehemence that his troll machine takes the cue and substitutes abuse for argument. Heck, Modi doesn't even take questions from his own partymen, as Member of Parliament Nana Patole said a fortnight ago.
• Rahul will not hesitate to take aboard some strong hands when he forms a government. This is a clear contrast to Modi, an insecure man who can only head a Cabinet of duds. Even fellow traveler Arvind Panagariya had to leave.

A pessimist might say that even if Rahul as PM did absolutely nothing, he would still be better than Modi. The Delhi deputy chief minister who worries there will be no alternative to Modi in 2019 will be proved wrong. It is likely that Rahul's government will never plumb the depths of incompetence we currently see. 

Rahul Gandhi's speech even though well drafted but delivery and subsequent questions & answers were immaculate. He might not be a saint in the past, like any other politician in India, but there were neither untruths nor exacerbation. This reminds me of Rajiv Gandhi's press conference during his first visit to USA after becoming PM in 1980s which catapulted him to an invincible slot then. Kudos to Rahul Gandhi for taking up the onerous task of opposing the invincible Modi for 2019 general elections. While trouncing of UPA in 2014 was a historical necessity, defeat of Modi & BJP and saving India in 2019 is even more important than that.