Commenting publicly on party dissidents, Congress stalwart Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said a group of 20 leaders “who have different views on Congress” would not survive in any other party like BJP, adding that Congress allowed space for leaders to debate.

 After two foreign organizations criticized India on freedom and democracy, Rahul Gandhi said the “situation is much worse than they have imagined”. He also said he was protecting a certain ideology in the Congress party and would not step aside just because someone else does not like it and continue to fight the RSS. He also said he favored internal democracy in Congress and has promoted many leaders within the party.

In an online interaction with Professor Ashutosh Varshney of the Brown University in the US, Gandhi said electoral democracy can be “destroyed” in the 21st century if one can control the social media and institutions and has financial dominance while citing examples of Saddam Hussain and Muammar Gaddafi. Asked about Sweden’s VDem Institute’s democracy report that has downgraded India from the “world’s largest democracy” to an “electoral autocracy” and the US government-funded NGO, Freedom House, downgrading the country’s status from “free” to “partly free”, he said these foreign institutions have their view, but “frankly, we do not need a stamp from them”.

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