Princeton: Addressing a meeting on Tuesday at Princeton University in New Jersey, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi talked about his dream to decentralise power in India in all spheres.
At the same time, he said that though his party had disagreements with the Narendra Modi government, he agreed with them on the issues of 'Make in India' and GST.
"In 1947 we took a huge step, we started a process of transforming India. It started before that, when Mahatma Gandhi came. Then 1992 was an important point, we took some decisions to open up the economy," he said at the beginning of the session.
On issues plaguing India, the Congress VP said, "We’re not spending enough on education and healthcare. Jobs are the biggest challenge. 30,000 youngsters coming into the market daily. 400 jobs being made."
He added, "The central reason why Mr Modi rose and why Donald Trump came to power was because of jobs. A large part of population who did not have jobs supported these people. I do not know about Trump but Mr Modi has not done enough on that front."
"My main issue with Mr Modi is that he diverts those problems and points finger somewhere. There is anger building in India right now. We can feel it. People were angry with us because we did not create enough jobs, now they are going to get angry with Mr Modi," he further said.
"I like the 'Make in India' concept but they are not targeting whom they should. PM feels large businesses should be targeted. I feel medium and small companies should be targeted. That is where the jobs are going to come from. Large companies have a role, yet SMEs are where jobs come from. At the same time, you cannot ignore agriculture. Lot of jobs will come from agriculture if things like cold chains are taken care of," Rahul went on to say.
Talking about concentration of power in India, he said, "The problem everywhere in India is concentration of power. Good governance is about resisting centralisation of power. The central problem in India for me is centralisation of the political system. Too few people control things."
"For me transparency in governance is a major issue. No one knows what happens inside a committee. I sit on some of them. Law making process should be made transparent. I tried in Youth Congress. You get backlash. People don't like transparency," the Congress VP pointed out.
On what lay ahead for the Congress party, he said, "We were in power for 10 years. We had a vision that began in 2004. By 2012 we felt that vision had run into trouble. We are going to build on that vision. We are going to focus on jobs, education and health care," and added, "The central challenge in India is polarisation."
Seeking support from Indians abroad, he said, "Whenever India has made a big shift, it has done on the back of Non Resident Indians. For example Mahatma Gandhi was a NRI. So you people have a big role to play."
When asked by a member of the audience whether he admired any initiative of the Modi government, Rahul said he liked Make in India but he would implement it differently. "We also agree on GST. We helped the government in passing the bill," he said.
"We have a central difference with the BJP and that is - India needs to carry everyone along. It is dangerous not to do so," he maintained.
On being asked about Uniform Civil Code he said, "I leave that to the courts of the country. They will decide. I have faith in them."
Rahul is in the United States for two weeks and his programme started on the West Coast with a September 11 speech at the University of California Berkeley where he defended dynastic politics.
