Sheila clarifies on her Rahul remark

A day after her remark on Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi created a stir, senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit tweeted a clarification, and said her words had been twisted.

She had said, in a newspaper interview, that Rahul is not a mature politician and needed more time.

“Rahul has the sensitivity and concern of a mature leader. His words are those of a young, courageous and restless man,” she said in her tweet, along with the hashtag #DontTwistMyWords.

In the interview, Sheila (79) made the controversial statement when she was responding to a question on why the Congress has been decimated in several states despite “aggressive campaign” by Rahul Gandhi.

Dikshit was earlier announced as the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. Her name was later withdrawn after the Congress formed an alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the state polls.

She also said in the interview that the Congress is undergoing a “generational change” and that political language also has changed in the past few years.

“The political language has changed quite a lot. For instance, you would not expect the prime minister to say what he said about former prime minister Manmohan Singh. And please remember, Rahul is still not mature, his age does not allow him to be mature. He is what… in his forties. Please give him time. The Congress believes in development of the weak and marginalised. Rahul is the only one who has spoken about farmers,” she had said.