'Insult to people's mandate': Prahlad Joshi slams Rahul for comparing India to Iraq, Libya

Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday, slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for comparing the National Democratic Alliance-led government in India to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Joshi said that Rahul disrespected the mandate of the people by comparing the Indian government to the infamous dictators. 

"Rahul Gandhi is disrespecting the nation and the people of India by comparing the government to the infamous dictators," he said.  

While affirming that Congress does not believe in democracy, said, "Only Narasimha Rao was a non-Gandhi family leader who led Congress for some years." Comparing the Congress party with BJP he said, " Earlier, Amit Shah was BJP's National President while in the past, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Advani had also served as the Party's President. We do not know who will be our next Party President but in the case of Congress, it was led by Rahul Gandhi, then by Sonia Gandhi and now again, by Rahul Gandhi."

'Which Planet Is He From?': Javadekar 

On Tuesday, Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar also lambasted Rahul Gandhi over his remark. He stated that comparing India's democracy with that of Saddam Hussain and Muammar Gaddafi's erstwhile Iraq and Libya is an insult to the country and its voters.

"I feel giving a comment on Rahul Gandhi’s opinion is worthless. He always makes an outlandish statement. I do not know, which planet he lives in? Comparing the country's democracy to that of Gaddafi's is an insult to India and to the 80 crore people who vote. During the 2 years of Emergency back in 1975-77, we witnessed a time like that of Gaddafi and Saddam," Javadekar said.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi attacked the Central government over reports claiming the decline of democracy in India. During a conversation with Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University, he also said Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi used to win elections as well. 

On the reports by Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), a Sweden-based institute that downgraded India to an "electoral autocracy," showing a decline in democratic freedoms and Freedom House analysis which shifted India's status from a 'free' country to 'partly free, Rahul Gandhi said that we do not need the stamp from them, but proceeded to echo their 'findings'.

“We don’t need stamps from them, but directionally what they are saying is correct and democracy is actually weakening in the country. In fact, they are way behind the curve. The situation in India is far worse than they, or sections within our country, imagine. You can not separate electoral democracy from an institutional framework. Democracy is ineffective without its supporting frameworks. An election is not something that people are just going and pressing the button to caste the vote, it is a narrative," Rahul said.

(Inputs from ANI)