‘How could someone who failed twice become PM?’: Mani Shankar Aiyar’s shocker on Rajiv Gandhi | India News

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday latched on to veteran chief Mani Shankar Aiyar‘s remarks on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to assault the Congress.
BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya shared an excerpt of Aiyar’s interview on X, and mentioned: “Let the veil be stripped”.

In the video, the Congress chief mentioned that Rajiv Gandhi struggled academically and plenty of questioned his competency to become the Prime Minister.
“When Rajiv Gandhi became the Prime Minister, I thought, how could a person who was an airline pilot and had failed twice become the Prime Minister? I studied with him at Cambridge, where he had failed. Failing at Cambridge University is very difficult because the university tries to ensure that everyone at least passes. But despite that, Rajiv Gandhi failed,” Aiyar said.
“After that, he went to Imperial College in London, and he failed there as well. Then I thought, how can such a person become the Prime Minister of the country?” he added.
This comes after Aiyar had claimed that his profession was each made and unmade by the Gandhis.
During an interview with PTI, he talked about that apart from one event, he had restricted significant interactions with Rahul Gandhi, and he had solely hung out with Priyanka Gandhi on two events.
“For 10 years, I used to be not given a possibility to satisfy Sonia Gandhi one-on-one. I used to be not given a possibility, besides as soon as, of spending any significant time with Rahul Gandhi. And I’ve not hung out with Priyanka besides on one event, no, two events. She comes on the telephone to me, so I’m in contact with them. So, the irony of my life is that my political profession was made by the Gandhis and unmade by the Gandhis,” he told PTI.
Aiyar was a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi when he entered politics. His inner circle also included his cousin Arun Nehru, friend Arun Singh and Sam Pitroda.
This is not the first time that Mani Shankar Aiyar’s remarks have led to controversy.
Aiyar triggered a row when he said that the Chinese in 1962 “allegedly invaded India”.
In 2017, throughout marketing campaign for the Gujarat meeting elections, Aiyar had stoked a serious controversy and brought on appreciable injury to the electoral prospects of the grand previous get together after he used objectionable phrases towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress reacted by suspending Aiyar from the get together. Two years later in 2019, forward of the Lok Sabha elections, Aiyar defiantly recalled his remarks towards Modi and tried to justify it.
Earlier in 2014, Aiyar had made a chaiwala jibe at Narendra Modi, who was then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.