Ready to take over the reins of party: Rahul
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has said he is keen to take up the role of the president of his party, but also indicated a rapproachment has been reached between the party’s old guard and the crop of younger leaders that he has backed to take up key organisational posts. The party is in the process of holding its organisational elections, which is likely to culminate in October.
Gandhi spoke at length about his vision for India, critiqued the policies of the Narendra Modi government and fielded questions on dynastic rule, the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 and the corruption during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-II rule at an interaction with students and faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in the US on Monday. Responding to a question if he wanted to take up an executive role in the Congress Party, he said, “I am absolutely ready to do that.” The Congress Vice President, however, said the party has “an organisational election process that decides that.” “And that process is currently ongoing. So we have an internal system where we elect certain delegates who make that decision. So for me to say that that decision is mine that wouldn't be very fair.”
He said joblessness, farm distress and 2 per cent drop in gross domestic product fueled by the policies of the Narendra Modi government, particularly demonetisation and hurried roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST) regime, were serious problems confronting India. Gandhi said 30,000 youth join the job market every day, but the government is creating a meagre 500 jobs a day.
“The decline in economic growth today is worrying and it's leading to an upsurge of anger in the country,” he said. Gandhi said roughly 12 million young people enter the Indian job market every year. He said India is a democratic country and does not have and nor does it want China's coercive instruments. “We cannot follow their model of massive factories controlled by fear,” he said.
The Congress leader said jobs in India are going to come instead from small and medium-scale industries. India needs to turn a colossal number of small and medium businesses into international companies, he said. “Currently, all the attention in India is paid to the top 100 companies. Everything is geared towards them. Banking systems are monopolised by them, the doors of government are always open to them and laws are shaped by them,” he said. He said the jobless were the core constituency of the rise of rightwing leaders the world over.