FTII row: Anurag Thakur brands Rahul as 'hollow performer'

Responding to the ongoing protest by the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur on Thursday lashed out at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, and branded him as "hollow performer."

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"When the Parliament sessions are on, Rahul Gandhi ji goes out on the streets and when it's time to go out on the streets, he goes on foreign trips. Till date, nobody could understand him. There was neither logic nor truth in his speech," Thakur told ANI.

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"I would like to request the students that they should worry about their futures. What will they learn from a hollow performer, who could not lead his own party, who didn't let the Parliament function for 20 days? It is better not to take help from such fading politicians," he added.

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Thakur also used this occasion to suggest the Congress Party that it is time to move forward, adding that they should start looking for an outside leadership and not in the Gandhi family who are incapable of leading.

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Accusing the BJP of politicising the FTII issue, Gandhi earlier today asserted that every institution in India, which has been developed over the past five decades on merit, is now being destroyed.

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Nearly 200 students of the FTII have been striking for over two months against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Pune-based institute's chief.

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The stir had earlier taken a political dimension after Gandhi visited the FTII on July 31, when he attacked the RSS for promoting "mediocrity" in national institutions.