Media-shy Rahul

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, who prefers to maintain an arm's-length relationship with the media, had quite a brush with it last week. When he attended the book release (Dreaming Big) of telecom guru and long-time family friend Sam Pitroda, the media, expectedly, was not informed. Journalists were angry and registered their disapproval with Congress media managers. Gandhi's office attempted to make peace by tweeting about it late that night. And, the next day, after the Gandhi scion visited Delhi's Ramlila Maidan, his Twitter handle wasted no time in posting some of his pictures. ("Enjoyed chaat at the Ramlila Maidan ahead of the Dussehra celebrations," said the caption.) Then, when some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders tried to discredit Gandhi for visiting a Faridabad village where two Dalit children were burnt to death by calling it a "photo-op", he was visibly angry. This time, he sought out journalists to make his feelings clear: "When someone says it is a photo-op, it is not an insult to me, but an insult to these people here."