Ahmedabad, October 3
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today claimed he had vented the sentiments of the youth of the country and a large number of his party men when he described the proposed ordinance on convicted politicians as “nonsense”. He is on a two-day visit to Gujarat to assess his party’s working.

Rahul admitted that on the hindsight, he realised that the words used by him were “too strong”, but felt as a young man what he said “was right”.

“As a Congressman, I had every right to express my feelings and speak out what I thought was right,” he said, adding that the Union Cabinet later decided to withdraw the ordinance not because he had said so, but because a large number of Congress men and the country’s youth were against the government on protecting convicted politicians.

He denied that the Cabinet and the Congress had originally considered the measure to protect the interests of UPA’s alliance partners.

On whether his junking the ordinance was a wrong step, Rahul said he personally felt the measure would have proved to be “detrimental” to forging an alliance with other parties.

Rahul also lambasted his party in the state saying its poor showing in the elections was due to “internal problems” and not because of BJP’s popularity or Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s charisma.

In the presence of state party president Arjun Modhvadia and Leader of the Opposition Shankarsinh Vaghela, Rahul said he was trying to “fix” the issues and strengthen the organisation to take the BJP challenge.

He said while the Congress was suffering due to factional politics in the state, “the direction taken by the BJP is dangerous”.

He believed if his father, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who initiated the process of modernisation in the country, was still alive, “things would have been different”.