Congress leaders and workers are hounding Shekhar Gupta because he chose to criticise Rahul Gandhi

When even establishment journalists, who in the past had been close to the Indian National Congress like Shekhar Gupta, start lambasting the grand old party and its scion, Rahul Gandhi, it only points to the alarming decline of Congress. The party leaders instead of waking up and smelling the coffee have decided to attack Shekhar Gupta left, right and centre for his audacity to criticise and pose tough questions on Rahul Gandhi’s leadership abilities.

Gupta, who in his weekly national interest, decided to analyse Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in Kerala didn’t mince words as he criticised the party’s predicament. During the course of his analysis, he admitted that he has been scared to criticise Congress and Rahul Gandhi and was proven right as a battery of Congress leaders and supporters unloaded themselves on Gupta post the release of his video.

Labelling Gandhi’s visit to Kerala as a “useless stunt,” Gupta criticised the party scion with some strong words. “Think then, about the de facto chief of our largest opposition party, with still 51 members in Lok Sabha and the control of three major states, heading for election in another four states and one UT, in each one of which his party has a stake. And here he was, showing off his phenomenal fitness to school children. I would never trivialise school children, I know how hard they are to impress. But, for a 50-year-old to dazzle them with his muscle power?” said the journalist.

He then proceeded to quote a poem which according to him perfectly summed up the state of affairs of Congress. Quoting the poem, Gupta said, “Aag lagi hum ri jhopadiya mein, hum gawain malhar/dekh bhai kitne tamashe ki, zindagani hamaar (my hut is on fire, but I am singing malhar, the happy rain raga/see what fun my life is)”.

He added, “Sorry, Majrooh sahib, I stole this. But no sorry Rahul Gandhi. This was written for you.”

Unable to accept the harsh reality, Congress leaders resorted to attacking Gupta instead of carrying out an introspection. National Spokesperson of Congress, Pawan Khera took to Twitter to hit out at Gupta as he said, “If he had seen yesterday’s journalists getting ‘white’-washed by today’s government, Majrooh Sultanpuri would have changed his lyrics :  ‘आग लगी हम री झोपड़िया में, हम गाँवें राग दरबारी…देख भाई कितनी सरकारी भई हमरी पत्रकारी’”

National Convener of the Congress, Saral Patel said, “It’s okay to criticize the opposition. It’s healthy for democracy also, but if you are focused on mindless bashing the opposition more than holding the government accountable for its actions or criticizing their policy then that is neither healthy for democracy nor “Journalism”.

Swati Chaturvedi, who claims to be a journalist, said, “If you think that the opposition fighting against Modi & Shah is democratic business as usual you’ve lost the plot. Very easy to mock @RahulGandhi & be mum on Modi’s assault on democracy. Possible you want to protect real estate rather than the 4th estate.”

As long as the party is filled with blind followers of the Gandhi family who are nothing but a bunch of “yes men,” fortunes of Congress will continue to sink deeper. Yet the party leaders could not take in the criticism of Rahul Gandhi’s weak leadership and resorted to criticising Shekhar Gupta for his audacity to pose tough questions to the Congress scion.