Congress will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place, says Rahul Gandhi

WASHINGTON DC/NEW DELHI, Sep 10: The Congress Party will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place, which is not the case right now, Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition has said.
Gandhi made these remarks while talking to students at the prestigious Georgetown University.
“We will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place. And India is not a fair place,” Gandhi told students at the university here in response to a question on reservation and how long it would continue.
“When you look at the financial numbers, then tribals get 10 paise out of 100 rupees; Dalits get 5 rupees out of 100 rupees, and OBCs get a similar number. The fact of the matter is that they’re not getting participation,” Gandhi said.
“The problem is that 90 per cent of India is not able to play. Go through the list of every single business leader in India. I’ve done it. Show me the tribal name. Show me the Dalit name. Show me the OBC name. Out of the top 200, I think there’s one OBC. They’re 50 per cent of India. But we’re not treating the symptom,” he said.
“That’s the problem. Now, it (reservation) is not the only tool. There are other tools,” he said.
“There are many people who come from the upper caste who say, look, what have we done wrong? Why are we being punished? So, then you think about increasing dramatically the supply of some of these things. You think about decentralising power. You think about involving many more people in the governance of our country. You think of opening up. With all due respect, I don’t think any of you are ever going to become Adani or Ambani. There’s a reason for that. You can’t. Because those doors are closed. So the answer to people in the general cast is you open those doors,” Gandhi said.
RAHUL ATTCKS RSS
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the RSS of considering some religions, languages and communities of being inferior to others and said that the fight in India is about this and not about politics.
The Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha was addressing a gathering of several hundred Indian Americans in Herndon, a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, on Monday.
“First of all, you have to understand what the fight is about. The fight is not about politics. That is superficial,”
Gandhi said as he asked one of the Sikh attendees in the front rows to give his name. “What is your name, brother with the turban,” he asked.
“The fight is about whether a Sikh is going to be allowed to wear his turban in India or a kada in India. Or he, as a Sikh, is going to be able to go to Gurdwara. That’s what the fight is about. And not just for him, for all religions,” said the Congress leader.
Gandhi is currently on a four-day visit to the United States. His first stop was in Dallas which began on Saturday, and he arrived in Washington DC on Monday.
Criticising the RSS for their policies and vision of India, he said, “What the RSS is basically saying is that certain states are inferior to other states. Certain languages are inferior to other languages. Certain religions are inferior to other religions. Certain communities are inferior to other communities. This is what the fight is about.” “…that is the ideology of the RSS. Tamil, Marathi, Bengali, Manipuri. These are all inferior languages. That’s what the fight is about,” he said, asserting that these issues end up in the polling booth, the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha.
“But the fight is about what type of India we are going to have,” he said.
He asserted that regardless of the region one belongs from, “all of you have your history, all of you have your tradition, all of you have your language, and every single one of them is as important as any other one.” Gandhi also said that the BJP has no “understanding” of India.
REMARKS ABOUT SIKHS SINISTER: BJP
The BJP came down heavily on Rahul Gandhi over his remarks in the US about the Sikh community, saying the Congress leader is trying to create a “dangerous narrative” by speaking on “sensitive issues” abroad.
Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri told a press conference at the BJP headquarters here that Gandhi’s remarks were “sinister” in nature as he tried to spread falsehood among the members of the Sikh community living abroad to “eke out a living” and do not have much connection with India.
“I condemn is the strongest terms the statement he has made about Sikhs not being able to wear turbans and kadas,” the BJP leader from the Sikh community said.
Referring to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that happened during the Congress’s rule, Puri said, “If there has been one time in our history when as a community we have felt anxiety, a sense of insecurity and existential threat, it has been the times when Rahul Gandhi’s family has been in the seats of power.” “In 1984, a pogrom was carried out against Sikh community. As many as 3,000 innocent people were killed. People were dragged out of their homes, tyres were put around them and burnt alive,” he said.
MAYAWATI SLAMS RAHUL
Latching on to Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on the issue of reservation, BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday claimed that the Congress is conspiring to end reservation and asked people belonging to the deprived sections to be cautious in the wake of his “dangerous” statement.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister was reacting to Gandhi’s remarks that Congress will think of scrapping reservations when India is a fair place, which is not the case right now.
The BSP chief said the Congress never implemented OBC reservation nor conducted caste census when it was in power.
“Now it is dreaming of coming to power under its cover (of doing caste census). Beware of this drama of theirs (Congress), which will never be able to conduct caste census in the future,” she said on X.
“Now also beware of this drama of the supreme leader of the Congress party, Shri Rahul Gandhi, in which he has said abroad that when India will be in a better condition, they will end the reservation of SC, ST and OBC. It is clear from this that Congress has been conspiring for years to end their reservation,” she said. (PTI)