NEW DELHI: Congress has released a video showing Rahul Gandhi speaking on chess.
Russian chess legend, Garry Kasparov, who created a political buzz in India with his tweet on “Rae Bareli”, on the day Congress leader Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination from the seat, told The Sunday Guardian that his tweet was a “little joke” and he was not advocating for any party or individual.
While responding to a quote by an Indian user of “X”, Sandip Ghose, who had tagged Kasparov and Indian chess master, Viswanathan Anand, and said that that both Kasparov and Anand did not have to face the greatest chess genius, while apparently referring to D. Gukesh, Kasparov wrote on social media platform “X” that “Traditional dictates that you should first win from Raebareli before challenging for the top!”
The tweet soon went viral with the same being described as Kasparov questioning the decision of Rahul to contest from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat. On Wednesday, the Congress party had released a video that showed Rahul Gandhi playing chess and discussing the game while saying that he likes Gary Kasparov who “puts a lot of psychological pressure on himself and that he is a non-linear thinker.”
Kasparov, while responding to The Sunday Guardian, said that the tweet was a little joke on his part.
“I hope my little joke did not give the illusion of advocacy or expertise in Indian politics! Whenever a prominent politician dabbles publicly in chess, I find it hard to resist a jibe about it—never to intend political criticism nor support. A journalist’s tweet tagged me and brought it to my attention. Otherwise, as much as I’m devoted to politics generally, I admit I wouldn’t have noticed it,” Kasparov, who is presently in Arizona, United States said.
Kasparov, who has been into politics for more than a decade now and had to flee Russia in 2013 to escape Russia for his anti-Vladimir Putin stance, was last month added to the list of “terrorist” by the Russian financial watchdog responsible for combating money laundering and terror financing.
Commenting on this development, Kasparov said he was treating this designation as an “honour”.
“As for my recent promotion to ‘terrorist’ from ‘extremist’ by the Putin regime, it’s just the latest honor my dissident colleagues at the Free Russia Forum and I have received from the Russian mafia dictatorship. It’s depressing only in how it symbolizes how far and fast a country can fall when it loses the path of democracy, and how we should never take it for granted”, he said.