“Rahulji maidan mein kud chuke hein, aur Gujarat ke chunav mein unki ek aham bhumika rahegi, “ (Rahul has jumped into political arena and will play a pivotal role during the Gujarat polls),” Jaiswal said referring to the appointment of Gandhi as the general secretary of the AICC.

Marketing Rahul Gandhi as the “most favourite youth leader of the country,” Jaiswal said, “We had been requesting Soniaji to get him into active politics for the past five years. We are extremely happy with her recent decision and want to thank her for this.”

Jaiswal was in the city to attend a felicitation programmes for Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, organised by the Gujarat Pradesh Agrawal Sammelan (GPAS) in Gandhinagar on Wednesday afternoon.

Addressing mediapersons here, before the function, he said, “She (Williams) is a great woman and has made all Indians proud. This is a simple social gathering to acknowledge her commendable achievement.”

Though Jaiswal kept clarifying that he was not on a political visit, he welcomed reporters to ask him political questions in they wanted to.

To one question about development in Gujarat, Jaiswal said, without making a mention of Gujarat communal riots of 2002 and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, “The exceptional growth that the state has seen the past decade, was because of hard working and peace loving Gujarati community. The growth could have been double, had some people not sown seeds of communal hatred here.”

Jaiswal also did not leave a to attack National Democratic Alliance and BJP, when asked for his comments of the Ram Sethu issue and Sacchar committee report.