“He (M K Stalin) should write another book on how he manages to look so young,” said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi complimenting the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister on his fitness after releasing the former’s autobiography here.
Wishing Stalin, who turns 69 on Tuesday, a very happy birthday, Gandhi told him to “eat properly the cake tomorrow” as “he has trimmed down a lot.” These are some of the lighter moments at the book release event which turned into an anti-BJP conclave with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, former J & K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, and RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav criticising the attempts to dilute principles of federalism.
Beginning his speech by complimenting Stalin for being “fit” and “looking young”, Gandhi recalled a conversation between him and his mother Sonia Gandhi on Sunday on the DMK chief’s age.
“My mother told me yesterday that March 1 is Stalin ji’s birthday. She has sent a letter to him. I asked her do you know how old Stalin ji is? She said no and I replied he is going to be 69 years old. My mother said it is impossible. When I asked how old you think he is, my mother told me he must be 60,” Gandhi told the meeting.
After a while, Gandhi said, his mother did a Google search on Stalin’s age. “She googles these days. And she messaged me saying you are right. I don’t know whether he has written about this in his book. If not, he has to write another book on how he manages to look so young,” Gandhi said.
Besides attacking the BJP on a host of issues, the Congress MP turned emotional when he referred to his speech in Parliament early this month in which he spoke about Tamil Nadu. Gandhi said he realised that he had mentioned Tamil Nadu several times in his speech only when a journalist asked him the reason.
“I replied to the journalist I did because I am a Tamil. I thought about why I uttered those words while driving back home. I told myself you were not born in Tamil Nadu, and you don't speak Tamil. Why did I say so? Because my blood is mixed with your soil,” Gandhi said recalling his father’s assassination here.
“It was a sad experience for me losing my father. Very difficult experience but also an experience I learnt from. And so, I realised that I do have the right to call myself Tamil," Gandhi said. He also spoke about India being a Union of States and asked where a state comes from. “It starts from the land, from the land, comes the people, from the people comes the voice, from the voice comes the language, from a language, comes the culture, from the culture, comes the history, and from our history comes our state," he said.
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