The British Minister Wanted to Know The Real Strength of India


Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi while addressing an election rally at Latehar said that this election too is an election between two ideologies similar to the recently held Loksabha elections. The one ideology talks of aam aadmi, the poor, Dalits and adivasis; while another one talks about some selected people. “The ideology of Congress Party is that of aam aadmi, Dalits and adivasis while opposition talks of India Shining. We say if development takes place, it must include every section of society while our opposition says it will happen for only few people”he said. Congress General Secretary said that the UPA is running the central government since 2004 and there are numerous work to its credit. He said, “The biggest ever Employment Guarantee Scheme in the world, the NREGA is being carried out by UPA government. It is providing 100-day guaranteed employment to the poor villagers. Seeing the plight of the farmers our government waived their loan worth Rs 60,000 crores. It is also running Mid-day meal scheme for the school going children across the country.” Talking about the Forest Bill meant for ensuring the right of people living on forest land he said that this is a major achievement of the government. He further said, “When we launched the NREGA, our opposition had criticised the scheme saying that where was the money going to come from? They even said that the money was going to waste for this scheme.

This is unfortunate that money meant for farmers and poor people is termed as waste; while money going to big people becomes productive.” He cited his village visit with a British Minister and said how opposition had ridiculed him. He said, “The British Minister wanted to know the real strength of India. I told him if he wanted to see the strength of India, he will have to go outside of big cities. I took him to villages and we spent night there. That British Minister was impressed to see the energy of villagers. But next day what I saw in newspapers that all the leaders of opposition were saying that I am making mockery of India’s poverty.” He further said, “That Britisher understood the strength of India but our opposition could not.” He said that he visited villages because he had full faith in their capabilities. “That’s why we work for them,” he said. Congress General Secretary said that our opposition always talks big but don’t talk about poverty. “They talk about terrorism but they will not talk about poverty which is most important issue.” He asked, “What is the need of literacy? What is the need of health care system? It is needed as we have to bring our millions of family from the poverty trap.

This is a big question before Soniaji and this is a big question before Manmohan Singhji.” He cited different party’s rule at central and in state level as a big hurdle in implementing pro-poor schemes. He said, “Whatever we design for the poor at central level, it does not reach to them due to reluctance of the state government. In the case of NREGA and many other programmes it has been noticed.” He appealed to them to bring a government in Jharkhand which would work for the adivasis, Dalits and the poor. Earlier, Congress General Secretary addressed a rally at Bermo near Bokaro and said if UPA is voted to power, it will make special schemes for the adivasis. He criticised BJP for its promise of providing food grains at cheaper rates saying that the UPA is already doing that through Public Distribution System.