Rahul Gandhi's disastrous TV interview had Priyanka, Jairam Ramesh as prompters : Report

Party sources said in private that the interview failed to galvanize the rank and file, and instead gave a handle to Rahul Gandhi's opponents to rake up the issue of 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

These sources claimed that Rahul Gandhi was not properly briefed about the 1984 riots, otherwise the Gandhi scion could have rattled out facts to say that 442 people have so far been convicted by courts for the anti-Sikh riots, and that both Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had publicly apologised for the loss of lives.

An influential section in the party feels that Rahul Gandhi should come out of such stagemanaged interviews and connect directly with the masses, as Indira Gandhi did during the 1971 Lok Sabha elections when almost the entire mainstream English media was up in arms against her.