NEW DELHI: Congress’ scion Rahul Gandhi, tipped to be named the party’s candidate for premier next month, admitted yesterday that the party stumbled badly in recent state polls but vowed to stage a comeback.
A stunning performance by an upstart anti-corruption party helped topple Congress in elections to New Delhi’s state assembly earlier this month, only months before the country goes to the polls in general elections. Congress, in power at national level for a decade, also lost in three other state assembly contests in a devastating blow ahead of the May election.
“We didn’t really hit a six in the last election,” Gandhi, using a cricket expression, told top Indian business leaders at a conference. “We didn’t do as well as we expected, but we will renew ourselves and will fight strong and confidently,” Gandhi said.
In his first major speech since the party’s polling rout, Gandhi said endemic corruption was “bleeding the people” while adding the country urgently needed to get back on a high-growth trajectory.
“Poverty cannot be fought without growth — there is no confusion in my mind. There is a business engine and the people have to empower the business engine,” he said.
Gandhi plunged into the debate on growth vs welfare, saying that both must go hand in hand since it is “investments in people that create tomorrow’s markets. He also defended strongly the large amounts of money that was being spent on various welfare programmes and said it was necessary for social growth.
“There is a view that our investments in food security, employment guarantee and rural development are a drag on economic growth. I don’t believe there is a trade off between investments in the social sector and economic growth,” Gandhi told corporate leaders while delivering the valedictory address at Ficci’s annual general meeting.
“It is today’s investments in people that create tomorrow’s markets. It is today’s markets that allow us to invest in our people’s future,” he said, alluding to the ideological debate between the growth-first school and the social welfare-first school.
Stating that “arbitrary power” was the main problem for India, he said “middle path” can address a host of issues such as environment-industry balance, while calling for strong labour laws and regulation to sustain growth.
Speaking his mind on two major issues that have come to haunt Indian industry—law for land acquisition and environment clearance — Gandhi told members of the leading industry chamber that both can be addressed while promoting sustainable development.
He also made it clear that in his view there was no question of a “trade-off” in providing money for social sector, even as he called for the political will for modern labour laws that are flexible and humane.
AFP/IANS
