Virtually admitting that he could not seek a mandate on the basis of the Congress-dominated United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition’s record in office, Rahul Gandhi valiantly brushed this aside as inconsequential and promised a corruption-free future based on six Bills currently pending in Parliament. Delivering an emotive speech to the delegates of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) at Talkatora Stadium on Friday afternoon, the Amethi MP sought to dampen the panic in the party over the governance record of the past 10 years by urging the people to exert pressure on the Opposition parties (read Bharatiya Janata Party) to pass the pending legislations of the lame duck Government in the Budget session next month.
The session has been called mainly to pass the vote-on-account to take care of Government expenditure for the next six months, till the new regime has time to present a Budget. The UPA has, however, called a two week session (February 5–21) in the hope that it can persuade the a section of the BJP leadership to help pass its pet legislations and give it a fighting chance in the forthcoming general election. It remains to be seen how BJP president Rajnath Singh and Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi react to this audacity on the part of the Congress ‘shehzade’, who accused the BJP of viciously blocking several sessions of Parliament and subverting democratic institutions. He also charged the party of fostering communal hatred in the nation.
The Congress vice president struggled to overcome the despondency in the rank and file over his not assuming the mantle of Prime Ministerial candidate officially. He sought to raise morale by subtly hinting that he was the obvious choice if the party won the 2014 general election. The Indian Constitution, he pointed out to loud cheers from his audience, provides that the Prime Minister would be chosen by the elected MPs, and Congress being a democratic party would select its Prime Minister by this method. So as to leave no one in any doubt regarding his meaning, he added, “I am a soldier, I will do what you want me to do”.
Rahul Gandhi avoided a direct attack on Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders, but took a dig at them saying that the previous leaders had the talent to sell combs to bald men, and now the new leaders had gone a step ahead and were offering haircuts to bald men. He did not elaborate. He lambasted the call for “Congress mukt Bharat” and said that Congress stood by the 3000-year-old values of brotherhood and love embodied in the Bhagvad Gita and the Mahabharata, which were upheld by emperor Ashok, Guru Nanak, emperor Akbar and Gandhi.
Openly hinting at a small populist measure to be made by the Government to mitigate the anger of the people, the Amethi MP urged the Prime Minister to understand that nine (LPG) cylinders were not enough and that the people wanted 12 cylinders (per household, on subsidised basis). He pointed out that Congress Chief Ministers were controlling the price line by delinking vegetables from the purview of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), but could not explain why this had not been done earlier.
Specifically targetting women voters, Rahul Gandhi said he favoured reservations for women in Parliament and wanted 50 per cent Chief Ministers to be women (he did not say if this should be done through rotation, like reserved seats). The UPA, he claimed, had raised 14 crore people above the poverty line for the first time in history, and today there is a new class of persons, 70 crore strong, who stood between the middle class and above the Below Poverty Line category. But their position was precarious and could be undone by a serious illness in the family, but the Congress, if returned to power, would provide for their children’s education, health and employment needs, and make them a part of the middle class.
The Congress-UPA achievements, he claimed, included the RTI Act, the Lokpal Bill, the anti-corruption bills pending in Parliament (which the Opposition must be forced to pass), the food bill, MNREGA and the loan waiver to farmers. The Aadhaar identity card, he said, was a massive step forward. He said Sam Pitroda had made technology the bedrock of the future.
Taking on Narendra Modi’s jibe that Rajiv Gandhi had constantly spoken of taking the nation into the 21st century without doing anything to empower the nation in this regard, the Gandhi scion said that Rajiv Gandhi had laid the foundation (for the nation) and the only task that now remained was to take the Congress party into the 21st century by giving workers a voice in its decision-making. Admitting that workers are justifiably agitated when the party gives tickets to party-hoppers at election time, he dodged making a commitment that this would not happen again. Instead, he said, the party will admit new people, youth and thinkers, but would give tickets only to those who had the Congress ideology (vichar dhara) in their mind and blood.
Giving hope to the disgruntled, he said that as an experiment, the party would give tickets in 15 constituencies on the basis of inputs from party workers and the people. Rahul Gandhi seemed unaware that the Aam Aadmi Party had adopted this method in the recent Delhi Assembly elections, but MLA Vinod Kumar Binny had exposed it as a fraud on the people, as the tickets had already been decided for each constituency long before the exercise was conducted! Be that as it may be, he said he had conducted elections to the Youth Congress and National Students Union of India (NSUI); involved workers and others in the preparation of the manifesto; and would now experiment with ticket distribution. Panchayat leaders, who truly represent the people, would be given a greater say in the system in future, he promised, if Congress returned to power. Similarly, MPs and MLAs would have a greater say in law-making.
Rahul Gandhi avoided all mention of late Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru so as to avoid the charge of dynastic nepotism, and urged the workers to give their best in the coming election as the nation was at a turning point and people were unwilling to wait for the fulfillment of their aspirations. Congress, he said, had given the people higher incomes by raising the minimum wage, but real change need reform and structural adjustment and sustained political effort. The Amethi MP sought a chance to govern the country, but despite his thundering declamations from the pulpit, he could not defend the scam-tainted record of the UPA and had to present the passage of certain laws whose impact on the ground is mixed or dubious as his ticket to the nation’s top job. Overall, it was an unsatisfying performance.
Niticentral.com, 17 January 2014