We don't say Trump is mad: Sanjay Raut on Barack Obama's take on Rahul Gandhi

As Barack Obama’s opinion of Rahul Gandhi adds fuel to the fire between the BJP and Congress, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said that the former US President’s comments were ‘distasteful’ and questioned his knowledge of Indian politics.

Obama, in his memoir, ‘A Promised Land’, describes Rahul Gandhi as having “a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject.”

Read | Barack Obama's characterisation of Rahul Gandhi irks Congress

Raut lashed out, saying that politicians in India do not make such harsh statements.

He said, according to an ANI tweet, “A foreign politician can't give such opinions on Indian political leaders; subsequent domestic political discourse on it is distasteful. We won't say 'Trump is mad'. How much does Obama know about this nation?"

This further charged the friction between the two political parties as the BJP has repeatedly critiqued Rahul Gandhi’s abilities during his tenure as Congress president, and the defeat the party faced in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala had earlier tweeted “May I humbly remind certain overzealous friends of the Media running a sponsored agenda that we don’t comment on individual’s views in a book. In the past, a Leader has been called “psychopath” and “master divider” by people and agencies. We didn’t acknowledge such comments!”