Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, will travel to the US next week for two fireside chats, or informal conversations featuring a moderator and a guest in front of an audience, at Columbia University on November 17 and in Chicago on November 18.Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during an interactive session at Washington’s National Press Club in 2023. (PTI/File)Indian Overseas Congress chairman Sam Pitroda said the visit is built around academic conversations and not diaspora rallies. “He is required here at Columbia University on the 17th and Chicago on 18th November,” Pitroda said. “He is here for a fireside chat at Columbia University.” He added that Gandhi will then travel to Chicago.Pitroda said the first chat at Columbia will focus on the global student movement and the implications of that on overall global politics.Gandhi will be in conversation with Robert Pape, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, on international affairs and geopolitics. Pitroda called both events very important and timely.Pitroda said Gandhi’s events at Columbia and Chicago are the only formal engagements on the schedule.
He added that Gandhi agreed to take a small break and visit the US because of the subject matter.Pitroda said the sessions are meant to reach beyond the rooms. “People have huge interest in listening to Rahul Gandhi on these issues globally,” he said. “It will be properly broadcast by the universities, and I hope people tune in.”Pitroda said they do not have time to organise a programme with Indian Overseas Congress and will probably have a breakfast meeting with the leadership. He cited the cost of a larger event. “Public events are very complicated with all the security arrangements and hall and crowd,” he said.Gandhi’s 2023 tour included two public meetings with Indian Americans, a Capitol Hill outreach, think tank sessions and a meeting with Wall Street executives.
The Indian Overseas Congress, the party’s global arm, organised those events.In March 2021, Gandhi joined Cornell University economist Kaushik Basu for an online conversation on democracy and India’s relations with the US and China. In 2017, he spoke to students at Princeton and Berkeley.