Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and party MP Rahul Gandhi arrive to attend a party rally in Kanpur on Tuesday. — PTI
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Kanpur, August 8
Rahul Gandhi laid out the roadmap for the Congress in the state at the Nav Nirman rally, which marked the formal launch of the party’s Assembly election campaign in the state. Placing faith in the youth, he urged the state Congress to first organise and unite themselves rather than expect others to come to their aid.
While agreeing to share the responsibility of ‘Nav Nirman’ (reconstruction) he did not mince words and told an impressive crowd , urging him to become their “sarthi’, that he did not want to “make promise that he could not keep”.
In probably his longest speech, he spoke for 10 minutes, peppered with anecdotes and analogies. He urged the youth to rise above caste and religion-based politics and ensure a government, which worked for the common benefit of the poor and marginalised .
“I have full faith that the youth can change the course of politics. They want employment and not unemployment allowance. They want development for all. The last generation had put up with misrule but “we will not tolerate it any longer”, he declared before a cheering crowd.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi sitting next to him looked on encouragingly as Rahul tentatively took his first step outside the Amethi-Rae Bareli safe zone to do some plain-speaking at the historic Phoolbagh Maidan, with the KEM library, a fine example of Indo-Saracenic architecture, providing a picturesque backdrop.
Commenting on the political scenario in the state during the past 15-20 years of non-Congress rule, the Amethi MP recalled a visit to UP with his father 20 years ago. “During that trip my father told me that if you have 10 twigs you can easily snap them one by one. But if they are tied together they can not be broken so easily”.
According to Rahul, this was the situation in UP where every party was dividing the people on the basis of caste and religion so that the people remained weak and vulnerable while those reaped the benefits.
He said owing to the ‘misrule’ UP was being left behind while the nation was striding ahead. “The youth in UP was being forced to migrate to places like Punjab, Haryana and Maharasthra and be deprived of the chance of contributing to the development of their state”, he observed while urging them to promise to change the course of history by refusing to tolerate this any longer.
Later, Mrs Gandhi repeated the “Do or die’ slogan given by Mahatma Gandhi 64 years ago during the Quit India Movement in 1942 to rid the state from the Mulayam Singh Yadav misrule.
She said the Congress had to inculcate the same political fervour to save the state from the misrule of non-Congress governments. “That movement was also basically led by the youth and once again we expect the youth to take the lead”, she declared.
Launching a frontal attack on the Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Sonia asserted that his government had received maximum Central assistance. “It is the duty of the people to ask where this money is going.”
Expressing concern at rising terrorism which was hampering the development of the country, she decried the tendency to harass the innocent just on the basis of doubts.
