Smriti Irani hits back at Rahul, calls him 'failed dynast'

New Delhi, Sept 12: The ruling BJP today hit back at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his comments at University of California that dynastic succession was common to most parties in India, saying that Indian democracy ran on merit and at present, all the three top posts of the country were held by people coming from humble background. The party today fielded Minister for Information and Broadcasting Smriti Irani, who had contested against Mr Gandhi from Amethi in the last Lok Sabha elections, to take on the Congress leader for his comments on the country’s polity and its leaders. Addressing a press conference here, Ms Irani called Mr Gandhi a 'failed dynast', and said it was an admission of his own failure as a leader that he was complaining on foreign soil that he was being projected as 'reluctant' on the social media by the BJP followers. She said it was unfortunate that he was trying to belittle the Prime Minister on foreign land. The Minister, who said she was addressing the media not as a government representative but as party person, however, expressed her 'gratitude' to Mr Gandhi for accepting that 'under Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Congress had become arrogant.' Mr Gandhi in address to the university students at Berkley said that dynastic succession was a 'problem in all political parties. Most of the country runs like this, so don’t go after me.' Responding to this, Ms Irani pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, all were from poor background, and so was party chief Amit Shah, so it was would be distortion to say all parties were plagued by the problem of dynastic succession. UNI