Rahul Gandhi, a lawmaker of the ruling Congress party, speaks during the 2013 annual general meeting and national conference of Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi, yesterday.
New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi yesterday denied he was in the race to be the prime minister and said his aim was to “give voice to a billion-plus Indians” and fight for inclusive growth.
Rubbishing speculation that he might be the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition’s nominee for prime minister, Gandhi said: “It’s an irrelevant question. It’s all smoke. The only relevant question is to give people their voice.”
Gandhi was speaking to industrialists and businessmen at the national conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the forum on Wednesday.
In his first interaction with industry leaders after becoming vice president of the Congress on January 19, the 42-year-old Gandhi talked of the need to change the political system, but he was short on policy detail.
“Many people predict the probability of me becoming the prime minister, when will I get married etc. etc. But these are all irrelevant issues and what we should focus on is finding voice for a billion people. We have to channelise our attention to more important issues like corruption, underdevelopment and the inept political structures,” he said.
Although he had a prepared text, he often extrapolated and deviated from it and, after his formal address, chose to expound on his political philosophy on the “structural” and “systemic” problems of the nation as he answered a couple of questions while pacing up and down the dais.
Gandhi’s speech was laced with anecdotes, his personal experiences gathered from interfaces with common people and his perceptions on the future course of development for India.
Noting that it was a fate of accident that he comes from a chain of people “with a particular DNA”, he said no single individual would be able to resolve all the problems facing the country.
“If you think there is a guy who will come on a horse charging through and set everything right, this is not going to happen,” said Gandhi.
He said miracles should not be expected from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh either. “If you expect the prime minister to solve all the problems, you are going to keep expecting,” he said amid titters from the audience.
Gandhi questioned the top-heavy system of governance and said the majority of peoples’ leaders, like village council chiefs, were denied any say or had no inputs in the political process that goes into decision-making.
“This is very frustrating,” he said, and called upon industry to partner the government in pushing development and urged the business community to go for “smart interventions”.
“I believe in you. I want to forge a partnership with you to take India forward,” he said.
To facilitate that, he assured them a “fair and rule-based government system.
He took a dig at the Hindutva ideology and showed his socialist side. “I don’t like to keep people out. You can’t keep Biharis out of Mumbai or the Muslims of the system. This is not sustainable,” he said.
The corporate figures greeted Gandhi with a lot of applause.
“It was a path-breaking speech. He talked of involving the common man,” CII president Adi Godrej said.
“His thoughts on inclusive growth are in alignment with ours,” CII vice president Ajay Shriram said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party called Gandhi’s speech “lackluster” and “without direction”. Party leader Yashwant Sinha said the Congress leader did not address the problems of Indian economy and only shared a set of platitudes.
Congress spokesperson P C Chacko said: “When he said that he is not attaching much importance to who is going to be the prime minister that does not mean that he is not going to be the prime minister or that he is going to be the prime minister.”
IANS
