Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday described Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as a “non-serious” and “tourist” politician who disappear after elections and cannot understand the real India.
Goyal also said that he respected the role of the Nehru-Gandhi family in the freedom struggle and claimed that the “personal ambition of an individual prevailed over the will of the people of India” post-Independence.
“I don’t think so. These are non-serious politicians. They don’t seem to connect with the real India. They live in an utopian world. Occasionally, they come out into the field during elections and disappear after that,” Goyal said in response to a question by PTI during his campaign trail in Mumbai on whether Priyanka Gandhi would emerge as a formidable politician in the future.
“They can’t really serve the people, understand the real India as a tourist politician.”
Asked whether Priyanka’s statements on martyrdom experienced by the Nehru-Gandhi family will resonate with the people, the senior BJP leader said the Congress, after Independence, preferred to encash the work of many freedom fighters for an individual family.
“Well, we respect the fact that their family has played a role in India’s Independence struggle, but we should not forget the fact that Sardar Patel was chosen to lead the Congress by almost everybody in the Congress at that time. But, it was the personal ambition of an individual that prevailed over the will of the people of India,” Goyal said in an apparent reference to the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
In an emotional speech during the Congress campaign in Madhya Pradesh early this month, Priyanka had asserted that her father Rajiv Gandhi had inherited “martyrdom” from his mother and not wealth and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will never understand the sacrifices made by her family. — PTI
