Rahul Gandhi shares humorous campaign tale on translation troubles

PTI, Nov 29, 2023, 2:15 PM IST

After an intense campaign in Telangana to garner votes for his party in the assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shared a humorous story on Wednesday about how the translator of one of his speeches faced some challenges.

Gandhi made this remark at a book release event organised here, where IUML MP Abdussamad Samadani, a well-known orator, was present to translate his speech.

The Wayanad MP jokingly stated that being his translator ”can be a dangerous job.” Citing his recent speech at a poll rally in Telangana as an example, the Congress MP said that the translator ”got into a lot of trouble.” ”I was saying something and he (the translator) was saying something else. Then, after some time, I started counting my words, you know. He was speaking in Telugu. So, I thought if I say five words in Hindi, it would take five or seven words in Telugu. But he would speak 20, 25, 30 words.

”Then sometimes I would say something quite boring and the crowd would jump, getting very excited. Then I would say something exciting and the crowd would keep quiet. And at the same time, I cannot get angry. So, I have to smile all the time,” Gandhi said.

The Congress leader, however, said that he was sure his colleague — Samadani — would not have any such problems while translating his speech at the book release event.

The high-voltage campaign for Telangana assembly polls ended on Tuesday. The elections will take place on November 30.