Rahul’s aam aadmi has no social, economic face-20/12/10

Rahul’s aam aadmi has no social, economic face

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Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Sunday sought to redefined the concept of aam aadmi, disengaging it from any socio-economic profile and linking it with “opportunity”. He also tried to establish a synchrony between his own efforts to attract the youth to the political system and his party's emphasis on aam aadmi, maintaining that connecting both with opportunity is a “political imperative”.

“Aam aadmi in India is that person who does not have a connection to the system. Whether he is poor or rich, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christian, educated or uneducated, if he is not connected to the system, he is an aam aadmi,” he said at the Congress plenary session on Sunday.

Elaborating further, Rahul gave the examples of a “tribal boy in Niyamgiri who is thrown out of his land without justice, the Dalit boy in Jhansi who is forced to sit at the back of the classroom; the young professional in Bangalore who cannot get her child into a good school; the university topper in Shillong who cannot get a job because he does not know the right people,” etc.


“...he is the farmer in Aligarh who does not get the price he deserves for his land, he is the businessman in Hyderabad who is pushed aside because he does not have connections...he is the bureaucrat whose professional future is at risk because he refuses to compromise; he is the worker who builds the Metro with his blood and sweat but will never get the credit for it...”

"We call him the common man but in fact he is unique. He has immense capabilities, intelligence and strength. He builds this country everyday of his life and yet our system crushes him at every step."

Rahul said connecting the individual aam aadmi and aam yuva to the political system was the first step towards empowering the individual. He referred to Aadhar or the Unique ID initiative, saying it will give 1.1 billion Indians the right to an individual identity and make the delivery system more accountable.