Rahul flaunts the Miliband certificate

NEW DELHI: British foreign secretary David Miliband may have been pilloried by politicians here and the British media alike for his aggressive style in top level talks and unsolicited advise on internal issues while in India, but AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi considers his endorsement of ���good work��� by the UPA government a talking point in his election meetings.

Addressing a meeting in Ghaziabad, Mr Gandhi referred to Mr Miliband���s comments on the changes in India���s rural landscape. ���The British minister was impressed by the development taking place in the Indian villages. He told me that real Indian power lies in Indian villages and not in Delhi,��� Mr Gandhi told his audience in Ghaziabad.

During his trip to India in January, Mr Miliband had taken time off his diplomatic round to spent a day and night at Mr Gandhi���s constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Impressed with the developmental initiatives in Amethi, the British minister had said the visit to Amethi gave him a new perspective.

The visit of the minister to India, it be recalled, was a comprehensive disaster. The minister came under attack in the UK for writing an article in which he linked the Mumbai attacks to the Kashmir issue.

���Resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders,��� he had stated.

Even Congress was harsh in his criticism of Mr Miliband.���There is no linkage between Kashmir and the terror India has been facing emanating from Pakistan... The bureaucracy in the British Foreign Office should have educated him a little bit on the facts,��� AICC spokesman Manish Tewari had said a day after Mr Miliband left India.