Amid demand for enacting an Anti-Racism Law to protect rights of North-east people, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Centre is working towards giving certain minimum rights and security to people from the region all over India.
“You should not only be having these rights in places you belong to like Meghalaya, Tripura and Assam but in the whole of India,” Mr. Gandhi said as he interacted with tribal leaders in Diphu.
The interaction also saw the participants raising the issue of the death of Arunachal Pradesh youth Nido Tania after being allegedly beaten up by some shopkeepers in the national capital.
During the interaction, he talked at length on the issue of corruption and made a strong pitch for opening up the processes in the political system as a solution to it.
The Congress Vice President reiterated his resolve to replicate the Primary System of choosing candidates with the collective decision of party workers in a particular region if the pilot project of holding it in 15-16 Parliamentary seats this election bore fruit.
“Opposition talks about corruption but the most powerful and historical instrument against it in the form of RTI was given by our government. What was done in closed doors by bureaucrats can be known by any common citizen by filing an RTI,” he said.
Mr. Gandhi said the decision-making is confined to few and at best it is the 4, 500 MLAs and 800 MPs who enact all laws.
He noted that there has been a complaint for a long time that one family or one individual keeps getting tickets.
“We are holding primaries. We have held it now in 15-16 places but we want to take it in all constituencies and this is something, which no other party is doing. With this (primaries), all party workers would be involved in candidate selection and you will feel that it is your candidate,” Mr. Gandhi said.
