'We never want to run the govt for the rich'

Our country is not based on one single concept or ideology. It is filled with lots of ideas and ideologies. Every state has its own culture. This is our strength. Every state has its own strength and history. We must try to accommodate all such diverse thoughts.

Assam had recorded highest rice production last year. You achieved it following your own model. We gave special focus on the issues of farmers, tribals, minorities, SC, ST and OBCs. We sanctioned huge financial packages for it and lots of people benefitted. If one goes to Gujarat and asks the Adivasis there about their living conditions, he can realise their pathetic state of affairs there. They are not at all happy with the Gujarat model. The case is same with other sections of society, too. They say no one is there to listen to their issues. There are lots of cries and balloon flying on air on the Gujarat model but people are in distress there. The Gujarat model is beneficial only for a selected group of five to six industrialists. The lands of poor farmers are being snatched away.

If we want to develop Assam further, we need to connect it with other places. We can increase connectivity by roads, railway lines and east-west corridors. Your young candidate here was just talking to me regarding the necessity of a four-line highway here. It is a good idea. The state government built 22,700 km roads and 3,500 bridges here. It also constructed six bridges over the Brahmaputra - the lifeline of Assam. Around 1.3 million people could avail of the benefits of the MNREGA in Assam. Lots of poor benefitted from the free-medicine scheme called Assam Arogya Nidhi Yojana. About 800,000 got benefits of the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyuteekaran Yojana.

All our policies such as MNREGA, the Right To Information, Adivasi Bill, food security Bill, land acquisition Bill are aimed at empowering the common man. The state government here, too, wants to give more power to its citizens. This is the difference between the Congress and the BJP. While the Congress wants to empower people at all walks of life, the BJP wants to give the entire power to a single person. They think that only one person has the entire knowledge and do not realise the power of the people. The Congress knows that people possess knowledge and so their empowerment is necessary for development.

I am happy to see women in large numbers here. You have a rich tradition of respecting and empowering women. Other states must learn it from you. The Congress granted 50 per cent reservation for women in Panchayats. Now the bill to provide 33 per cent reservation for women is pending in Parliament. The Opposition is not letting it pass since they are scared of women empowerment. But we will definitely get that bill passed.

Women representatives had come to me and requested my intervention to increase the number of subsidised LPG cylinders from nine to 12. I conveyed this to our prime minister and Sonia (Gandhi) ji and they took no time to hike the numbers to 12.

The Assam government gives 33 per cent reservation here for women in government jobs and connected 270,000 women with the banks through self-help groups. We realise the strength of the women and our youth.

The new industrial and freight corridor - Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Chennai, Delhi-Kolkata - initiated by us will boost the manufacturing sector and lakhs of young people from Assam will be able to get employment once it is completed. We know China is the main global manufacturing hub and in future India, too, will become like China. We need to give more focus on education, too. Best educational facilities are now available in Assam. We have IIT, IIIT, NIT, TISS, RGIPT, two central universities, three medical colleges and 50 skill development centres in Assam currently. We know that educating the Assam youth will not only benefit this state, but the entire country also.

I want to tell you something about Tezpur. Indira Gandhi had told me that she had come to Tezpur relief camps during the India-China war. We have built an airport in Tezpur and have also started to make the four-line highway. We converted the railway lines there to broad gauge and upgraded the universities to central universities.

In the last 10 years of the UPA regime, we could lift about 1.5 million people out of poverty using our pro-poor policies and programmes such as the MNREGA, food and land Bills. Now there is a new class that has emerged, just above the poverty line but below the middle class. There are about 700 million people in that new group, who work in factories, as carpenters and we want these 700 million people to be brought in the middle class, while we continue serving the poor and downtrodden. We now want to grant the poor a right to health and a right to shelter. We never want to run a government for the rich. We know that we need industries, manufacturing centres but we will forget our poor people.

The Opposition just sees the poverty from a distance and delivers big speeches from the stages. The Opposition says "India Shining", they market models, but India will only shine, when no one is poor. Our country will shine only if we eradicate poverty completely.

The BJP's politics is about two things. First, pit Hindus against Muslims, the rich against the poor and people of Maharashtra against those from UP and Bihar. Just before the elections, riots started in Muzaffarnagar at UP. Second, they fail to see the pain of the poor. So they talk of things like "India Shining", which I will never because I meet you every day and understand your suffering. The poor are not visible to the BJP and it never does anything for the upliftment of the poor.

Congress leaders, like Gandhiji, go to the people, hold their hands in support, interact with them to realise their issues. This has been our tradition. No leader can transform our country, if he does not go to the people, and listen to them.

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Edited excerpts from Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's speech in Sonitpur, Assam, March 27