Rahul Gandhi looks like Saddam Hussein, says Assam CM Sarma; Cong terms him 'petty troll'
Ahmedabad, Nov 23: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has claimed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi looks like "Saddam Hussein", the former Iraqi dictator, and it would have been better had he turned his appearance like Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi.
Hitting back, senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said the Assm CM was sounding like a "petty troll".
Gandhi has been seen sporting a beard during the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra, a mass contact initiative of the Congress.
During a public rally in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, Sarma said, "I just saw that his looks have also changed. I said in a TV interview a few days back that there is nothing wrong with his new look. But if you have to change the looks, at least make it like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel or even Jawaharlal Nehru will do. It is better if it looks like Gandhiji. But why is your face turning into Saddam Hussein?"
This is because the Congress culture is not closer to Indian people. Their culture is closer to people who have never understood India, Sarma claimed.
He further claimed that Gandhi (during the Bharat Jodo Yatra) preferred not to visit states like Himachal Pradesh, where elections were held recently, and poll-bound Gujarat, and was instead focusing on states where there were no polls because he knew that he will be defeated wherever he visits.
Sarma said he saw (Narmada Bachao Andolan) activist Medha Patkar with Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Maharashtra.
"She is the one who conspired to deprive Gujarat of water. Had she succeeded, the Narmada water would never have reached Kutch. Rahul Gandhi is doing Bharat Jodo Yatra with such people who never wanted Gujarat's development," the Assam chief minister claimed.
At a press conference in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, Congress leader Manish Tewari said, "I would not even like to dignify this diatribe with my reaction. I think it is very important that we maintain the decorum of language in public and maintain some propriety. The CM of Assam unfortunately sounds like a petty troll when he articulates sentences of this type."
Elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held on December 1 and 5 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 8.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
