Speaking at an interaction with university students on Saturday, 23 February, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said that if the Congress party comes to power, it will give martyr’s status to paramilitary forces.
He was responding to a question by a student on the Pulwama attack. The Congress president went on to speak on a range of issues.
Gandhi said educational institutions are being used as instruments of ideology. Gandhi said there has been a concerted effort to put people belonging to a certain ideology as heads of educational institutions.
“Educational institutions should not be used as instruments to propagate an ideology, which is being done now,” Gandhi said.
He also said the only task of political parties and the government should be to be provide funding and autonomy to academic institutions.
Attacking the current government, he said, “When I say government should support education, it means, making bank loans easier, scholarships, adding more universities and pushing enrollment. If you look at all these numbers, they have fallen in the BJP regime.”
Criticising the government on the its failure to create employment, he said, “Our current government does not even want to accept that there is employment crisis.”
Recounting his experience of his recent visit to Shamli in Uttar Pradesh, he said, “I recently visited the families of martyrs. In my journey to Shamli, I interacted with many youngsters, and many stated that they are not employed.”
He also said that India should consider China as its competitor in terms of generating employment. "In a county of over 1.2 billion people, and India is creating about 450 jobs per 24 hours while China is creating 50,000 jobs in the same 24 hours,"he said, claiming, "these are not my figures, but of the Finance Ministry given in Lok Sabha", he claimed.
The Congress president attacked the government, alleging that it propagates politics of hate. He said it is the responsibility of the leadership of the country to guard against it.
“If the PM of India condemns the atmosphere of hatred, then naturally the anger in the nation will diminish. Leadership should guide the nation,” he said. “We should solve the employment crisis to remove anger in the society,” he added.
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