Childish play

Gandhi has been in the public eye for many years now, so it is baffling that he can still get up to the kind of antics he displayed in Parliament

Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Parliament during last week’s no-confidence motion against the government was nearly equally hailed and dissed. His effort to reach out to the Treasury benches by bringing up the colourful terms that he is labelled with on social media seemed genuine and heartfelt.

Yet, ultimately, that infamous forced hug and the wink that followed it went to prove the truth of what the Prime Minister derided as his “childishness” in another context. It was impossible to get rid of the feeling — buoyed by the Prime Minister’s painting of the motion as little more than an anti-Modi