M A I N   N E W S

Join me to cleanse politics, Rahul urges students
Raman Mohan and Bhanu P. Lohumi
Tribune News Service

Hisar, August 27
The youthful Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi today promised students that he would cleanse the country’s politics, if they supported him.

He was on a daylong visit to Haryana to keep his date with activists of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) of Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar, Guru Jambheshwar University, Hisar, Kurukshetra University and the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal.

At all three places, access to the venue was denied to the media. At Karnal only seven minutes were given to cameramen to click photos. Thereafter, they were virtually held hostage in another room till Rahul’s departure.

According to participants in the interaction, Rahul said as a 12-year-old he would accompany his father, the late Rajiv Gandhi, on his tours around the country and he realised even at that age that something was very wrong with Indian politics. Since then he had been working towards cleansing it. “If you support me, I promise to cleanse the country’s politics,” he declared.

Rahul said not everybody was corrupt, but honest people also got labelled for things they had not done at times. “The only way to clean politics and give it a fresh lease of life is by following the example of rivers where fresh water flushes out the dirty water. The youth is like fresh water in the context of politics.”

He said when India became free, it was a country of the poor. The country now had two faces - the rich and the poor. “This gap has to be bridged so that the entire country is benefited from economic prosperity.”

When a participant asked him why the disparity in quotas for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and other categories vis a vis students of the general category, he asked the general category students to raise their hands. Those who raised their hands outnumbered others overwhelmingly.

“You see this is the situation all over the country. Those who are less, need more attention,” he was quoted as saying.

When asked him why he chose to interact only with NSUI workers and not the youth from other political parties, he said, he would consider this issue.

Rahul said people should join politics through the process of elections and not by virtue of the clan they were born in.

He arrived at the venue from the Hisar airport around 12.30 pm and finished his interaction at 1.45 pm. He was received at the airport by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and other Congress leaders. However, they did not accompany him to the function. Union Minister of State Prithvi Raj Chavan and Meenakshi. Natrajan, AICC secretary, in charge of the NSUI, accompanied Rahul.

Interacting with about 700-odd students at the NDRI, Karnal, Rahul described dairy farming as a vital link between “rural and urban India” and also a powerful mode of sustainable income.

Box: In order to rule out the possibility of any participant showing him black flags, girls with black dupattas and boys with black T-shirts were not allowed inside the auditorium.Girls were asked to remove their hair pins before entering the hall. Neither pen or paper was allowed inside, the students said.