Modi’s ‘strongman image’ now India’s biggest weakness: Rahul Gandhi

Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a mistake instilling a “strongman image” in the world, adding that now it has turned into the country’s “biggest weakness”. In a tweet on Monday, the Indian opposition leader shared a video message in which he responded to last month's skirmish involving India and China a the Ladakh border, which inflicted heavy Indian casualties. “It is not simply a border issue, the worry I have is the Chinese are sitting in our territory today,” he said. "Chinese don't do anything without thinking about a strategy. In their mind, they have mapped out a world and they are now trying to shape the world... that's what the scale of what they are doing. That's what Gwadar is, that's what Belt and Road is. It's the restructuring of the planet," he said.
Accusing Indian PM Narendra Modi of solely trying to save his image and succumbing to the pressure from the Chinese, the 50-year-old politician questioned Modi’s current strategy. "They understand that in order for Narendra Modi to be an effective politician, he has to protect the idea of "56 inch (chest)" and this is the idea that Chinese are attacking. They are basically telling Narendra Modi that 'if you do not say what we are saying we will destroy the idea of the Narendra Modi as a strong leader'," Rahul Gandhi said in the two-and-a-half-minute long video. “Now the question is how will he (the Prime Minister) react... will he say I will take you on and say 'I am the PM. I do not care about my image'...or he will succumb. The worry I have is that PM has succumbed... that the Chinese are sitting in our territory today and PM has publicly said that they are not.”