Making his stand loud and clear on the question of donning the prime minister’s mantle, Congress general secretary and the party’s star campaigner Rahul Gandhi asserted here Monday he was “not obsessed” with a job even as “many top leaders” were.
“I am not obsessed about becoming prime minister. “There are many top leaders in the country who have that obsession,” he said without taking any names.
“My obsession is to respond to the needs of the masses and I therefore do only one thing — listen to the voice of the people and take it to parliament,” he said at a press conference here, just two days before the seven-phased Uttar Pradesh elections begin Feb 8.
“It was the result of this obsession that we could bring in things like MNREGA, the Right to Information Act, the right to education act and now the food security bill,” he added.
Gandhi, who is running a hectic campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, said he was “firmly of the view that power does not lie with leaders. It lies with the people and we simply transmit their power”.
Hitting out at both the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as well as the Samajwadi Party (SP), Gandhi sought to label them as “goondas and thieves”, while dismissing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as “non-existent” in Uttar Pradesh.
Pointedly training his guns at BJP stalwart L.K. Advani, he said “even though Mr. Advani undertook a much hyped yatra across the length and breadth of the country, he continued to ignore the voice of the people”.
Referring to the current electioneering, he said: “As far as I am concerned, this is no longer an election, but a mission to change the lives of the people of Uttar Pradesh.”
“I do not care about the results of the election and it is immaterial to me whether we get two seats or 200 seats; my primary objective is to ensure that the people of this state get what they deserve the most — respect,” he added.
Charging that the people of the state had been fooled by successive non-Congress regimes over the past 22 years, the 41-year old Gandhi scion sought to reassure the people of the state that he “will not leave UP even after the elections are over because my ultimate aim is to see that this state stands up on its own feet”.
“The people of this state have the desired potential and energy to achieve the ultimate goal of transforming UP, which has been amply demonstrated in other states where they have toiled to bring about transformation,” he added.
Asked if the Congress would go for a post-poll alliance in the event of a fractured verdict, Gandhi shot back: “I will not go for an alliance with any political party. My alliance will be with the people of the state. We do not believe in making tall promises but in actually delivering development which the people have remained deprived of.”
Flaying both SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP president Mayawati for not not caring to relate themselves to the needs of the masses, he also accused them of making false and tall promises like “free electricity, free education etc etc when the fact remains that they had never reached out to the common man in the backward regions of Bundelkhand or other poverty-ridden areas across UP.”