Politicians should stay away from cricket and sports, says Rahul Gandhi

Mumbai: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday made a strong pitch for politicians to stay away from cricket administration.

During an interaction with management students at a leading business school here, Gandhi was asked if politicians should stay away from cricket and sports.

"I don't think politicians should be anywhere near the administration of cricket. Cricket should be run by cricketers. I don't think politicians should be running cricket," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader claimed the Pathankot terror attack was mishandled by the Modi government.

"The best experts on dealing with terrorism, foreign policy are not being consulted. NSA is dealing (with the attack) directly. His job is strategy, not tactics which is the job of NSG. When you let people who don't know what to do, do it, you get into a problem," he said.

"You can't totally prevent terror attacks but you can react in the right way. The main issue is how do we respond. During the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the then UPA government consulted all senior people. We completely marginalised Pakistan. Now, the way it is being handled is ad hoc," he said.

"We ensured peace in Kashmir," he said. "The biggest problem India is facing today is massive centralisation of power. Everything is being done by three or four or five-six people. You can't solve problems by centralising power," he said.

"Exports and the rupee are collapsing. The impact of fuel price cuts is not being passed on to the consumers. There is a complete failure of management of economy," Gandhi said.

"The current PM used to ridicule our PM (Manmohan Singh) on the economy. Now, my advise to this PM is get to work," he said. "We (Congress) are not just 40 plus people in Lok Sabha, we are 20 per cent vote of the country," Gandhi said.