Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi with Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot during a rally at Deoli. — PTI
Leaving his partymen stunned, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday delivered what perhaps was his shortest speech till now. Mr Gandhi, who was in Deoli on Monday to kickstart party’s Lok Sabha campaign in Rajasthan, spoke only for five minutes and 17 seconds.
In the absence of PCC chief Sachin Pilot, who left with Mr Gandhi for Kolayat, Bikaner, for a scheduled interaction with labourers, other party leaders had no clue what had prompted the Congress vice-president to end his speech abruptly. This was Mr Gandhi’s first public meeting in Rajasthan after the Assembly elections.
“I have travelled for three hours to attend this rally and he could not spare more than five minutes,” said Chetan Bairwa, a young party worker from Chaksu.
Echoing same view, a former MLA, who requested anonymity, said that defeat in the Assembly election has already demoralised party workers.
“It wasn’t easy to persuade them to come for the meeting, yet they worked hard to manage a decent crowd,” the former legislator said.
In his short speech, Mr Gandhi claimed that 15 crore people were pulled out of poverty by the UPA government and a “new class” of 70 crore people had emerged, who are below the middle class, and his party wants to do politics for them.
“The new class of 70 crore people, who are above the poverty line but below the level of middle class, has been created in the last 10 years and it includes security guards, taxi drivers. We want to do politics for them in order to bring them up to the middle class level,” he said.
The Congress vice-president painted the BJP as a party that cared only for rich while the Congress was working to make life possible for the poor. Mr Gnadhi also accused the BJP governments of working only for the rich. “Woh sirf ameero ke liye sarkar chalate hai,” he said.
“We believe in working for the poor, to empower those who run the country on daily basis...” he said.