Quest for power not in me: Rahul Gandhi

Says Congress has to transform itself as it prepares for the Lok Sabha elections

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he is not "driven by the desire for power" and he was an "anomaly in the environment" he is in.

In an interview to TimesNow, in what was billed as his first formal TV interview in ten years, Gandhi said: "I don't get driven by the desire for power. For me, power is an instrument that can be used for certain things. It's not interesting to own it, to capture it or to hold it."

"Maybe it's because of my family circumstances and what happened to my family. Power per se, the quest for power, the thirst for power is not there in me. What is there in me, is a desire, a strong desire to reduce the pain that people feel," he added.

"Frankly, in a lot of ways, I am an anomaly in the environment that I'm in." He said "I feel the pain" and have a strong desire to "change the system".

"Supported AAP to see how much it can prove itself"

Gandhi said his party supported the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in forming the government in Delhi to see how much it proved itself.

 

Gandhi said the Congress has to transform itself as it prepares for the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Asked about his views on AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Gandhi said: "He is a leader of an opposition party like many others."

 

On the differing views in the party on giving support to the AAP, the Congress leader said his party thought that it should provide support.

 

"I think that as far as I am concerned, the AAP won an election in Delhi and we thought that we would assist them," he said.

 

"We thought we would assist them because our party felt we should give them a chance to prove themselves... and one can see what they are doing and one can see exactly how much they have proved themselves," Gandhi said.

 

Asked if he has changed views on the AAP after praising them initially, Gandhi said the way they have reached people in their own particular way good.

 

"The work that I have done in the Congress party, the work that I have done in the youth Congress and the work that I am going to do in the future is about bringing in youngsters into the party, strengthening processes, strengthening candidate selection process and strengthening policy processes," he said.

 

Gandhi said he had spoken earlier about something that the Congress "can learn from them (AAP)".

 

"What I felt that we could learn from them is that they reached out to people in a particular way that was good. There are things that I don't think we should take away from them."

 

"I think we have fundamental strengths in the Congress party and it is something that we have been working on for 3-4 years now. The real power of the Congress is the depth of the organisation and you can't make changes by destroying things," Gandhi said.

 

On the Lok Sabha elections, he said the party has to bring in youngsters.

 

"We have to do three things. One is we have to transform ourselves, we have to bring in youngsters, we have to give them space. Two is we have to look at manufacturing, we have already set up the corridors north, south, east and west, how we can take the energy of the Indian people and build a manufacturing superhouse... That is what I think the real issues are," he said.

 

Gandhi rejected the contention that the Congress had propped the AAP to divide the anti-Congress vote so that the Bharatiya Janata Party does not make gains.

"Gujarat government was actually abetting, pushing 2002 riots"

 

The Congress vice president said the Gujarat government was "actually abetting and pushing" the 2002 riots and the difference with the 1984 riots was that during the anti-Sikh riots the then Congress government "was trying to stop the killing" while Narendra Modi's government was "allowing" it to happen.

 

Gandhi also acknowledged that "some Congress men were probably involved" in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi. Though he was asked by channel anchor and editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami if he would apologise for the riots in which more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi, Gandhi veered away from the topic.

 

Asked by Goswami if the Congress leaders accused of involvement in the riots had been delivered justice, the Gandhi scion said that "there is a legal process through which they have gone through".

 

"The difference between the 84 riots and the riots in Gujarat was that in 1984 the government was trying to stop the riots. I remember, I was a child then, I remember the Government was doing everything it could to stop the riots. In Gujarat the opposite was the case. The Government in Gujarat was actually abetting and pushing the riots further. So there is a huge difference between the two things, saying that innocent people dying is absolutely wrong," he said.

 

Asked by the anchor to explain how he could say that the Modi government was "aiding and abetting the riots" since the court has given him a clean chit, Gandhi said: "I mean it's not me...it's the large number of people who were there, large number of people who saw actively the Government of Gujarat being involved in the riots."

 

"I mean, people saw it. I am not the person who saw it, your colleague saw it. Your colleagues told me," he told Goswami.

 

Asked if the journalists had actually seen the riots, Gandhi said: "They saw the administration actively attacking minorities."

 

Asked to explain, the Congress vice president said:"I am saying that there was difference between the 1984 riots and the riots in Gujarat. The difference was that the Government in 1984 was trying to stop the riots, trying to stop the killing whereas the Government in Gujarat was allowing the riots to happen."

 

Prodded further if he would apologise or express regret if someone asked him to, Gandhi said: "First of all I wasn't involved in the riots at all. It wasn't that I was part of it."

 

Asked by Goswami if he would apologise on behalf of the Congress party, he said "Frankly I was not in operation in the Congress party."

 

"Not my job to punish ministers"

 

Gandhi acknowledged that there was no case being followed up against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh over alleged corruption, and said: "It is not my job. My job is when I see issues of corruption, (to) take action on it. That's what I do."

 

"As far as any corruption done, there is a legal process. And that legal process should be followed and concluded. As far as my personal view is concerned, anybody who is corrupt should be brought to book," he said.

 

"Anybody who is corrupt, should be punished. I am not a judge. So, if there is a legal process and there is a result of the legal process, absolutely they should be punished."

 

Gandhi said that Virbhadra Singh and former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, accused in the Adarsh Society scam, were not "oblivious" because of their "clout."