We Are Learning from Mistakes in Bihar, Empowerment of Downtrodden Now Top Priority: Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi

Patna, April 7: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday asserted that his party was “learning from its mistakes in Bihar” where the party had been lax in bringing about all-round development through empowerment of the downtrodden classes. The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha was addressing a symposium in the state capital, months ahead of the crucial assembly polls in which the Congress, in alliance with RJD and the Left, will take on the formidable ruling NDA.

While addressing the “Samvidhan Suraksha Sammelan” (Save the Constitution Symposium), Gandhi claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had built a “system” in which the country is being run by five per cent of the population and 10-15 people are controlling the entire corporate world. “I must be the first person in the Congress to admit that we did not work, in Bihar, with the zeal we should have. But we shall move forward learning from our mistakes. Our party, and the coalition of which we are a part, shall strive for uplift of SCs, STs, OBCs, extremely backward classes and minorities,” said the Congress leader, whose party's decline in the state began with the Mandal wave of the 1990s. Rahul Gandhi Bihar Visit: Lok Sabha LoP Joins Kanhaiya Kumar-Led NSUI’s ‘Palayan Roko Naukri Do’ Rally in Begusarai (Watch Video).

He said, “We recently did something which may not have been great but was still of significance. We reconstituted District Congress Committees. Earlier, two-thirds of these were headed by upper castes. Now two-thirds of these are headed by the deprived castes. This has been in line with clear instructions from (national president Mallikarjun) Kharge ji and me for the organization”. Claiming that Bihar has been the land of great political changes, starting from the Independence struggle, Gandhi alleged that at present, the NDA's politics is serving the interests of billionaires. "We are sure that Bihar will once again serve as a catalyst for change," he said.

The Congress leader, who was on his third tour of the state in four months, had earlier visited Begusarai, about 150 km away, to take part in “palayan roko, naukri do (stop migration, give jobs) pada-yatra”, an initiative of the party's student and youth wings to highlight Bihar's endemic problem of joblessness and migration. Gandhi did not address the public in Begusarai, which is also the home state of the party's youth wing national in charge Kanhaiya Kumar.

The former Congress president, however, was joined there by thousands of young supporters, many of them wearing white T-shirts like the leader has been doing since the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” a couple of years ago. Union minister Giriraj Singh, who represents Begusarai in the Lok Sabha, appeared miffed at the Leader of the Opposition's presence in the town. “Rahul Gandhi should worry about his own palayan (departure) from public mind,” the BJP leader told reporters in Patna. ‘Waqf Bill Attacks Muslims, Sets Precedent To Target Other Communities in Future’, Says Rahul Gandhi After RSS Mouthpiece’s Article on Catholic Church Land.

At the Samvidhan Suraksha Sammelan in the state capital, Gandhi gave a nearly 40-minute-long speech, calling the Constitution “not a merely 70 years old book, but an ideology that is thousands of years old, since the times of the Buddha, continuing through the era of Kabir and Guru Nanak, and ultimately inspiring Babasaheb Ambedkar”. The Congress leader mocked PM Modi for “bowing down before the Constitution after the elections, realising that his bluster of 400 plus seats for the BJP had backfired and people would not allow him to tinker with the Samvidhaan”.

He alleged that BJP, and its parent body RSS, drew inspiration from Vinayak Damodar Savarkar “who could not stand the truth”, in stark contrast with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, “both of whom loved truth with the same intensity as the Buddha did”. The former Congress president asserted that a nationwide caste census was needed “just like an X-ray is required to assess the injury to any part of the body”, but the BJP-RSS were opposed to that.

“But they will have to get a caste census done. They will also have to pull down the fake barrier of the 50 per cent cap on quotas for the deprived castes. I have told the PM inside Parliament that if his government dithers, we will do the needful,” said Gandhi. The Congress leader peppered his speech with many anecdotes, recalling interactions with qualified medical and engineering graduates and a skilled shoe-maker, all of whom, he said, were finding it difficult to realise their full potential “because of the system”.

“The system is such that the entire country is being run by just five per cent of the population and 10-15 persons are controlling the entire corporate world. On the other hand, in menial jobs, like security guards, domestic helps etc., there is a disproportionately high percentage of the deprived castes. Things have come to such a pass that even the poor among upper castes are finding it difficult to get a good job,” alleged Gandhi. He also lauded the Congress government in Telangana for making a move in the direction of empowerment of the underdogs through a survey of castes, followed by a hike in quotas.