Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the term 'Yuvraj' was insulting for him. The scion of the Nehru Gandhi family also stated that he considered Manmohan Singh, who was the 'most able Prime Minister', as his leader. Several leaders of the Congress and its allies have recently declared that they would support Rahul as the United Progressive Alliance's prime ministerial candidate for the Lok Sabha polls in 2009.
Interacting with farmers in Gadak district of Karnataka, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said he is opposed to blanket waiver on farm loans, as it could prove 'destructive for the system'. He called for strengthening micro-finance and credit lending systems as a remedy to farmers' problems. Gandhi stressed on rural excellence and indigenous knowledge to guide the country to a better agrarian situation. He stressed on micro-finance systems & grass-root political units.
Efforts like the United National Progressive Alliance are a 'result of some honest efforts but the real third force will come into being only in the post-poll scenario', he said while disagreeing that a third force was already in place. The 75-year old veteran socialist claimed his relationship with Congress leadership was 'never strained' though he was pained by the fact that none in the Congress camp tried to 'acknowledge' his efforts to keep away BJP.
Congress parliamentarian Rahul Gandhi is not happy about his countrywide sojourn being termed as a 'Discover India' tour, saying it was not a 'Bharat Darshan' for him. The 37-year-old All India Congress Committee general secretary also clarified that the tour, which has been seen as a launch of the party's election campaign, had nothing to do with any poll.
Change was possible only if young people joined the political process, Rahul, who is on his 'Discover India' tour, said addressing a rally in Gunpur, Orissa, in the memory of his father and late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. "In every party, including Congress, I see that there is no space for the younger lot," he said adding, to change a country, "you have to work together with a new force and involve the youth in the initiative".
"I remember my father had once said that only 17 paise out of a rupee reach people. Now the situation is even worse," Gandhi said while addressing a rally on the second day of his tour in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. "The Centre could send money and develop schemes. But in the absence of a delivery system here (Bundelkhand), it has no meaning. I have seen that not even five paise out of a rupee reach here," he claimed.
Soon, the party will launch a network linking more than 1,000 party offices across the country, which will include facilities like computer-based faxing and instant messaging. More than 30 lakh partymen are to be given official e-mail addresses and each cadre would be able to approach party president Rajnath Singh via video-conferencing.
The Blair model, used to turn the Labour Party's flagging fortunes around in Britain over a decade back, has come in handy for India's grand old party, which is in search of a winning formula after successive electoral defeats including in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Talking to media persons on board an aircraft to Bangalore to attend the installation of the first-ever saffron government in southern India, he said: "The government will have to pay for its opportunism. Now, they have reached out to talk when they are at the verge of falling."
While the main opposition party, which lost power in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections after a six-year stint in office, remained unclear on the leadership issue, it remained upbeat for having found an 'emotive issue.'
"It's a historic day for the party. The national executive today endorsed 33 per cent reservation for women in all bodies of the party. It will now be ratified by the national council," senior party leader Sushma Swaraj told reporters.
In the absence of an unwell Atal Bihari Vajpayee, there was talk of the leadership issue, but there were no clear cut answers.
Amid talk of mid-term polls, Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party appear to have gone into election mode and have launched hectic efforts to get their acts together.
Cyber communities have been formed that declare their hatred for political parties, including the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Left has never been comfortable with Kalam and had even put up the late Captain Lakshmi Sehgal when the NDA sought to make him a consensus candidate in 2002 and the Congress had no option left but to support him.
Ahead of the assembly polls in Goa in June, the ruling Congress faces several ticklish issues, including a revolt by controversial parliamentarian Churchill Alemao.
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, concerned over the development, has already said that the issue could come up at the meeting of leaders convened by him on April 25 on the eve of the re-convening of the second phase of Budget session.
"Just because I have criticised someone on the issue does not mean that I do not appreciate him," Gandhi told reporters.
Despite Babbar being the local parliamentarian, he has failed to set Yamuna on fire and leaders from Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party as also the Baharatiya Janata Party dubbed the party of the suspended SP leader as an 'also-ran.'
He also dubbed the Congress' alliance with BSP in Uttar Pradesh in 1996 as a "sell out".
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