Rahul woos youths, pledges progress

NONGPOH/MAWKRYWAT, FEB. 20: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has pledged to ensure speedy development of Meghalaya while appealing to his core constituency of youth to become active participants in heralding a change in the manner politics is conducted not just in the state, but throughout the country.

Addressing his party’s election meetings at Nongpoh and Mawkynrat on Wednesday, Rahul said prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and he would do everything in their command and work together with the state government to ensure Meghalaya progresses faster. “You have a young chief minister and he is doing good work. He is a hard working person and he thinks about the future of your state. And you have your government in Delhi, which is also a Congress government, which wants to support the growth of Meghalaya. I want both these governments to work together to bring massive developments to the state,” he said.

Sharing his vision of inclusive growth in Meghalaya, Rahul said local government and local people must be empowered to carry the agenda forward. “When we want to talk about development in Meghalaya, we want to say that every single tribe, every single group has to move together forward because we believe that it is everybody’s right to have access to development regardless of where they are from or who they are,” he said.

Rahul exhorted the youth to be part of the political system to bring about a change in the manner politics works in the country. “If we really want to change politics, then we have to bring youngsters into the political system. Youngsters who are sensitive to the views of the common man, youngsters who feel the pain of the poor person, youngsters who suffer when they see a bad road, youngsters who suffer when they see that their people do not have the medical facility they need. It is only when we open the doors of politics, and bring in these youngsters, that politics will really change. And I see many of those youngsters in this ground and I want you to enter into the political system,” he said, while admitting that he was not happy with corruption in the political system.

Paying glowing tribute to the traditional institutions of the state, the youthful Congress leader said the existence of such democratic set-up for hundreds of years was a lesson to the entire country. “What is democracy? Democracy is the voice of the people. It is the voice of every person regardless of who he is – whether he is rich or poor, and this is what you have taught to the rest of the country… I want to thank you for giving this gift to the country,” he said.

The Congress government at the Centre, too, listens to the voices of the people before taking any decision, which, he said, are reflected in its various pro-people programmes and policies like MGNREGA, RTI and Right to Food. “All these decisions are designed for every single person in the country, and we do this because we understand that every single person’s voice is important,” he said. (By SURAJ JOSHI and BUREAU REPORTS)