Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Dynasty does not matter: Rahul Gandhi

Ndtv.com, 11th March, 2008
Sunetra Choudhary

Congress youth leader and Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi has said that people should be promoted irrespective of who their parents were.Rahul has stuck his neck out a bit in Orissa, taking a stance totally contrary to the Supreme Court's order on mining.He also made some observations on dynastic politics, making it interesting to come from someone who has only benefited from it.One of his first stops on the Orissa tour was Lanjigarh in Kalahandi.The tribal in this area have been displaced by the mining and have been fighting a multinational company that plans to mine their sacred hill Nyamgiri.They had given up their hopes in the battle until Rahul Gandhi came along.''Personally, I think that there should be no mining in the area,'' said Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary, AICC said. The mining project, given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court is backed by the state government, which has said it will promote employment in a backward state.However, it is not just the mining issue that Rahul spoke about.An interesting and perhaps ironical moment was Rahul Gandhi's comments on dynastic politics.He said that he wanted people to be promoted without considerations of parentage.That is how he tried to boost the morale of the National Student Union of India (NSUI) workers in Bhubaneshwar.But it might sound a little hollow coming from a fifth generation Gandhi and a party where most of the young MPs are from political families.

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