'Which planet is he from?': Javadekar slams Rahul Gandhi comparing India to Iraq & Libya

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday lambasted Rahul Gandhi over his remark on Indian democracy. He stated that comparing India's democracy with that of Saddam Hussain and Muammar Gaddafi's erstwhile Iraq and Libya is an insult to the country and its voters.

'Rahul lives in which planet?": Javadekar

"I feel giving a comment on Rahul Gandhi’s opinion is worthless. He always makes an outlandish statement. I do not know, which planet he lives in? Comparing the country's democracy to that of Gaddafi's is an insult to India and to the 80 crore people who vote. During the 2 years of Emergency back in 1975-77, we witnessed a time like that of Gaddafi and Saddam," Javadekar said.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi attacked the Central government over reports claiming the decline of democracy in India. During a conversation with Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University, he also said Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi used to win elections as well. 

On the reports by Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), a Sweden-based institute that downgraded India to an "electoral autocracy," showing a decline in democratic freedoms and Freedom House analysis which shifted India's status from a 'free' country to 'partly-free', Rahul Gandhi said that we do not need the stamp from them, but proceeded to echo their 'findings'.

“We don’t need stamps from them, but directionally what they are saying is correct and democracy is actually weakening in the country. In fact, they are way behind the curve. The situation in India is far worse than they, or sections within our country, imagine. You can not separate electoral democracy from an institutional framework. Democracy is ineffective without its supporting frameworks. An election is not something that people are just going and pressing the button to caste the vote, it is a narrative," Rahul said.

"My Mic was switched off in Parliament": Rahul Gandhi

"My mic was turned off in the Parliament in the middle of my speech. The essence of the Parliament is that I should be allowed to speak and when I am speaking it should be shown on TV to the country but the TV doesn't show what's going on in the Parliament," said Congress leader.