Bengaluru: Nothing political about Rahul Gandhi's HAL visit'

Bengaluru: Responding to the row over Congress president, Rahul Gandhi meeting HAL employees over the Rafale deal, former vice-president of the Hindustan Aeronautics Employees’ Association, Ananth Padmanabha claimed on Friday that there was nothing political about it and the aggrieved employees were merely taking their problems to  opposition party leaders as they had been ignored by the Centre

Speaking to reporters at the KPCC office here, Mr Padmanabahan compared the ruling and opposition parties to parents and employees of a state owned company to their children. 

“If the child’s demands are genuine, it will definitely approach the ruling party first and only start to meet opposition parties when they are not met. So there is nothing wrong in HAL employees meeting Mr Gandhi,”  he argued.

Maintaining that there was no politics involved, he said as the HAL was deprived of its share of work (in the Rafale deal), it directly hurt its employees. 

“If the opposition party leader is coming to address this issue, it should not been seen as politicking,” he stressed.

Pointing out  the HAL  employed 30,000 people across the country, he contended that if the public sector company had benefited from the Rafael deal,  it would have added 3,000 more employees to its staff to honour the agreement, which would have helped them greatly. 

“Ever since HAL was started in Bengaluru, it has given great impetus to the city’s growth. The ruling dispensation at the Centre should not take away the company’s glory,” he said.