What did Obama say about ex-PM Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in his memoir?

Team Udayavani, Nov 14, 2020, 11:17 AM IST

Former US president Barack Obama’s memoir ‘A Promised Land’ mentions several senior leaders from Congress, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Obama in his upcoming book  said that Rahul Gandhi has “a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the course work and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject”.

Also, he mentioned Sonia Gandhi in his book and said “we are told of the handsomeness of men like Charlie Crist and Rahm Emanuel, but not the beauty of women, except for one or two instances, as in the case of Sonia Gandhi.”

Obama compares Manmohan Singh with former US Secretary of Defence Bob Gates, saying both coming across as ‘having a kind of impassive integrity’.

Obama also mentions about the recent US President-elect Joe Biden, who served as the Vice president during his tenure. He wrote, ‘He is a decent man who might get prickly if he thought he wasn’t given his due – a quality that might flare up when dealing with a much younger boss.’

Russian President Vladimir Putin reminds Obama of the tough, street-smart ward bosses who used to run the Chicago machine, though ‘Physically, he was unremarkable’.