World | India
'Ageing' Gandhi beckons youth to join politics
Calling himself "an old person", Congress leader Rahul Gandhi yesterday exhorted youths to join politics and take up leadership roles to strengthen Indian democracy.
- IANS
- Published: 00:17 March 27, 2008
Mangalore: Calling himself "an old person", Congress leader Rahul Gandhi yesterday exhorted youths to join politics and take up leadership roles to strengthen Indian democracy.
Addressing Youth Congress workers here on the second day of his five-day tour of Karnataka, Gandhi said that at 37 years he was getting old.
He would like the younger generation to enter politics to widen the democratic base and to serve the people to make India a developed country.
"At 37, I am already an old person. But a majority of our over billion-strong people is younger than me, constituting about 70 per cent of the population.
Developed nation
"That is the strength of India. We have to harness the huge potential of our youth power to become a developed nation," Gandhi told about 500 party workers, many of them in their 20s.
Regretting that internal democracy was lacking in many political parties, Gandhi told the young audience to think of out-of-the-box solutions to tackle endemic problems such as poverty, illiteracy, discrimination and exploitation.
"You should make a difference by ushering in a refreshing change in the political system by ensuring internal democracy for a healthy socio-economic development. We need to cleanse the political process to provide an honest and efficient governance," Gandhi said. Terming the present-day youth as the future of India, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family said that if the election process could be regulated and made more effective by a constitutional body like the Election Commission, there was no reason why political parties should not also act with greater transparency and accountability.
Due to unseasonable rains, a scheduled rally and public meeting had to be cancelled. After interacting with party leaders and workers, Gandhi flew to Hubli, about 480km from Bangalore, to attend other programmes.
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