Mysuru: He was friendly, approachable and humble, asking to be called "Rahul" and posing for selfies. Congress president, Rahul Gandhi wore the garb of a people's neta with ease during his hour long interaction with students of the Maharani's college here on Saturday.
Explaining his decision to enter politics after his father, the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was killed, he said it wasn't a career but his life and he was happy to be a part of it. He also encapsulated his beliefs and vision to build a more fair, equitable and happy India with more compassion and more focus on the poor.
"If the BJP believes in imposing one idea on all, the Congress believes in one nation with ideas generated by many people, which need to be respected, and implemented by government," he said.
Dressed in his trademark white kurta and pajama, Mr Gandhi greeted the students with a huge smile and a wave, and asked if they preferred for him to sit or stand while taking questions. When he insisted they call him "Rahul" a few girls ventured to do so, while others called him Rahulji. When a girl suddenly jumped out of the crowd demanding a selfie with him, he readily obliged, and when another girl wanted to ask a question in Kannada, he told her to go ahead and he would have it translated. At the end of the session, he stepped down from the stage again for several group selfies with the girls. While he spoke on various issues, on the five GSTs, he said, "GST was Congress party's idea, but we wanted to implement a single tax and not five different taxes for the sake of greater transperancy." To a question on the BJP's failure to create the jobs it had promised, he said his party would focus on increasing the pace of employment creation by improving access for financial support for small and medium scale industries. "In every 24 hours China creates 50,000 formal jobs while India creates only 450 jobs. The reason is the people who have skills do not have access to bank finance and support. Huge amounts of money go to the top 10 or 15 business men. Both demonetisation and GST have done massive damage to job creation and the economy as the backbone of Indian job creation is the informal sector and small businesses, which are being wiped out," he added.
