In an interview on Times Now on Sunday anchor Arnab Goswami asked Congress party spokesperson, Venkatakrishnan Narayanan, whether his part was being punished for corruption. Narayanan, who lived in the United States of America earlier, and calls himself Americai Narayanan replied, “If you’re asking me whether there has been corruption during our UPA, hell yeah,” and instantly became a social media phenomenon.



 



So who is Americai Narayanan? A commerce graduate from the University of Madras and with an MBA from the University of Kentucky, Narayanan worked for the Texas-based oil and gas public utility Lone Star Gas. After living in the US for 13 years he returned to India and joined the Congress party in 1988. He has been the party’s spokesperson in Tamil Nadu for the last five years. He is also a surfing enthusiast, according to his Twitter profile photos.



Early in his political career, Tamil magazine Junior Vikatan described Narayanan as a young man who returned from the US to join politics and the name America Narayanan stuck.

“It is not the name I asked for," Narayanan told Scroll. "I realised that I don’t what to be called America Narayanan but I don’t want to significantly change the brand.” Narayanan decided to keep the name with a slight modification. He changed "America" to "Americai'", which resembles the Tamil word "amarikkai", commonly used to describe people who behave politely and respectfully. While he keeps the America in his name, Narayanan’s home is called India, according to his website.

RaMo and RaSh

Narayanan believes that the Congress’ biggest problem is its communications strategy. UPA I and UPA II did not properly present the good things it  did and didn’t face the backlash of its failures honestly, he said. Narayanan’s new mantra for the Congress includes important lessons from the enemy, which is sums up in two words – RaMo and RaSH. “RaMo is Rahul and Modi," he said. "Rahul is a great man. He has beautiful ideas of helping and changing the party. But we need Modi’s communication. RaSh [Rahul and Shah] is Rahul’s idea and we need someone like Amit Shah to implement it.”

Narayanan clarified that he is not the Congress party’s national spokesperson but will appear on national news if his party asks him to do so. About his Sunday interview Narayanan said, “I thank the people for the brickbats and bouquets. People see me with my warts and I am not trying to project an image that I’m not. People have a right to criticise me.”