Don’t consider Rahul a leader yet, says Hansraj Bhardwaj

New Delhi: Once known as a Gandhi clan loyalist, former law minister Hansraj Bhardwaj on Thursday targeted the Congress for “indulging in politics of religion” and made it clear that he “does not consider Congress president Rahul Gandhi a leader yet.

When asked that the Congress is trying to counter the BJP by indulging in politics of religion, he said, “That is why the Congress is losing.”

“Politics in the name of religion is wrong. Whether Jawaharlal Nehru or Indira Gandhi, they never practiced communal politics,” he added. He said Mr Gandhi is still learning and will become a leader only when the public accepts him.

This is not the first time that Mr Bhardwaj has been critical of the Congress and Mr Gandhi. In 2015, the former Union law minister had said the Congress was too weak to counter the ruling BJP at the Centre. He has said that the Congress and Mr Gandhi were “out of touch with the ground reality”. In 2016, he had alleged that some of his Congress colleagues had asked him to influence the judiciary during his time in office under the first Manmohan Singh-led UPA government from 2004 to 2009. He was referring to a 2005 Supreme Court verdict, which stopped the UPA government from imposing President’s Rule in Bihar when a JD(U) and BJP coalition was attempting to form a government.

Since Mr Bhardwaj demitted office as the governor of Karnataka, he has been questioning the Congress president. Interestingly the Congress has also not given him any post in the organisational setup.

Even when Mrs. Sonia Gandhi was the party chief Mr. Bhardwaj was on the sidelines. Though, most of his life he has been a family loyalist but now it seems he has run out of favor with the current dispensation of the Congress.