Enigmatic Rahul Gandhi embraces politics in emotive speech

JAIPUR: Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has made an impassioned pitch for change in India’s Grand Old Party, positioning himself as both a proud inheritor as well as a forward-looking leader seeking to address the electorate’s aspirations ahead of the next general election.

The Nehru-Gandhi scion drew heavily on his family’s legacy, in his first address since being officially anointed the number two in the party, even as he identified the challenges faced by the Congress and promised to reach out to everybody in the party and the country.

“The Congress party is now my life and people of India are my life,” Gandhi said to thundering applause in a 40-minute speech at the end of the three-day brainstorming session, or Chintan Shivir, and All India Congress Committee meeting in Jaipur on Sunday.

Without offering a clear road map, Rahul Gandhi promised decentralisation of power within the Congress party.

Gandhi said there was an urgent need to address the youth of the country and understand why their anger was spilling over to the streets. “They are angry because they are alienated. They are excluded from the political class. They watch from the sidelines as the powerful drive around in their laal battis (red beacons),” he said.

“Why are the poor confined to powerlessness? Because decisions about their lives are made by people far away answerable to them only in theory.”

Experts said the speech, though Gandhi’s finest yet, was essentially a statement of intent rather than a proposal of actionable solutions.

“It was a good, well-structured and powerful speech, certainly his most impressive speech to date. That is saying the most obvious thing about it. But one will have to see how this translates into real changes in governance and other issues. It is a statement of intent, we are yet to see a followthrough,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research.

In a speech reminiscent of conventions in the run-up to US presidential elections, Gandhi also provided a rare glimpse into his personal life, as he recounted the assassination of his grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards. “When I was a little boy, I loved to play badminton. I loved it because it gave me balance in a complicated world. I was taught how to play in my grandmother’s house by two policemen who protected my grandmother. They were my friends. Then, one day, they killed my grandmother and took way the balance in my life,” he said.

He added, “The same evening I saw my father (former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi) addressing the nation on television. I knew like me he was broken inside and even like me he was terrified of what lay in front of him, but when he spoke that night I felt the small glimmer of hope.”

As he spoke about his personal loss, everybody in the 1,500-strong audience of party members sprang to their feet, clapping and cheering.

Gandhi took care to remind everybody thought that he did not crave for power for power’s sake. “Yesterday, everybody congratulated me. But last night my mother came into my room. She sat with me and she cried. Why did she cry? She cried because she understands that power, which so many seek, is a poison. She can see what it can do. She can see it because she is not attached to it. The only antidote to it is to see it for what it really is. We should only use it to empower the voices of the people,” he said.

The Opposition was, however, dismissive of Gandhi’s promises to transform the Congress. “Rahul Gandhi’s elevation in the Congress party is a move to convert the world’s largest democracy into a dynastic one,” said BJP’s Arun Jaitley, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

In his speech, Gandhi said the Congress needed to run by rules and also exhorted the party to prepare several leaders across the country. He said there was an urgent need to identify the performers in the organisation and give them opportunity so that Congress could build its leadership.

“There was a time when we had 40 photographs of big leaders. Nehruji, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad. They were all giants. Anybody could become prime minister. This is what we need. We need to ready 40-50 leaders who could lead this country,” he said, adding the party should develop leaders in every state. “In the next 5-6 years we need to develop in every state 5-6-7 such leaders who could become chief ministers. If someone asks us what does Congress party do? We can say Congress party prepares the leadership of India,” he said.(Economic Times)