PALACE ROAD:If nothing else, Rahul Gandhi was entertaining when he came to interact with the students of Mount Carmel College yesterday.
At Seize The Future, the Congress Vice-President addressed a full house of over 600 students in the main auditorium of the college.
Students had been seated from 12 pm and, in order to get them to settle down, the film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was screened. They giggled when Pandit Nehru came on screen. There were loud whispers of “Oh! How well timed!” and “I think they did this on purpose”.
High security was in place at the venue. The students were not allowed to take their cellphones, bags or even pens inside.
Rahul Gandhi arrived 19 minutes late. Zubeida, one impatient final year student, snapped, “They want to lead the country and they cannot even be on time.”
The Congress leader wore a casual tee and a warm smile. Despite being surrounded by bodyguards, he walked to the students and teachers, shaking eagerly extended hands.
He walked through the entire auditorium and made small talk with those in the front.
He had an easy conversation with the girls, asked their names and where they’re from. There were students screaming out to him. Among them was Iram, a final year Home Science student. “He is so handsome. I just wish I had shaken his hand,” she said.
After a few cultural programmes by student associations, he was quickly called on to the stage to give a speech.
The leader admitted to have done some research on the college by referring to Wikipedia.
He had noticed that the list of alumni included numerous leading actresses. This observation caused the ‘young ladies’ to cheer him with a hoot.
“I called up three women who had graduated from this college and who had impressed me to ask them about this institution,” said Rahul.
Those women were Nirupama Rao, ex-foreign secretary and ambassador of India to the US, Margaret Alva, former governor of Rajasthan, and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CEO of BioCon.
Then, he switched to his pet concern — women’s empowerment. He also spoke about the importance of having a conversation with the common people and, needless to say, indulged in some ruling-party bashing.
He kept up to his image of being the bachelor in town by causing the women to swoon. “For me, all of you here are beautiful,” he said and added, much to everyone’s disappointment, “and every single one of you has a place in this country.” When he compared the outlook of BJP, RSS and the Congress on their attitude towards women, the crowd let out a heavy sigh. It was politics, after all. After the speech, there was a student interaction session.
He said that he was here to listen to the concerns of the young people of the country and was open to comments and suggestions.
Many questions were posed by six students and none were answered to anyone’s satisfaction. But he did play the part of an eager young leader, refusing to sit down while taking the questions.
Some questions were on ‘Suit Boot sarkar’, the GST Bill and the role of opposition in Indian polity.
There were some embarassing moments. Like when he tried to shame the Swachh Bharat and Make in India initiative. He asked the students if the two were successful and the students gave a resounding “yes”. Ouch! Student body President of the college, Namrata Chandrashekhar said, “I dont know what the impact this speech has been on real time politics. But it has been an engaging one for sure.” The Student Union had a seperate discussion with the Congress Vice President on centralised education and the reservation system. “The student body stood for uniform curriculam, same standard of education and equal exposure. He however disagreed with our viewpoint,” said the college President.
Why was he there?
So why did Rahul Gandhi come to Mount Carmel? “We don’t know,” said a student, laughing. “Out of the blue, his PR team called up the college and said that he wants to visit us, and so he did.”
The event is done with and still no one knows why he invited himself over.
Few expected his speech to be scintillating. “Considering the ones he has given before,” she said. “But this one was not so bad. Surprisingly.”
“He started by talking about the college and its achievements. Later, when he moved on to politics, we knew his intention was simply to promote the Congress. That’s when he lost his audience,” she said.
The students asked him about specifics like the rolling out of the General Sales Tax. “But he did not have anything concrete to say,” she said. “He blamed the BJP for not letting the Congress participate in the Parliamentary debates,” she said.
Someone asked him about his vision for India and he said that one person alone cannot have that for the country. “He replied that he wants to know the students’ vision for the country,” she said, adding that the reply was not impressive.
Then he attempted to inspire the students to join politics. “It sounded silly,” she said.
‘It was all political’
At one point during his speech, Rahul Gandhi criticised the BJP government for not having a ‘strategy’. He asked the audience if they thought the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was working. “Yes!” they roared. When he repeated the question, just to be sure, the response seemed mixed. He went on to ask if the Make in India campaign was working and once again, a resounding “Yes” was heard. The students had expected a rousing talk about empowering the youth and instead got a typical politician’s speech.
He was encouraging
A visually impaired student from the Commerce Department reportedly spoke to Gandhi about how she had wanted to pursue media and communication, but was discouraged from doing so due to her disability. The Congress leader spoke to her like an older brother and told her that she was very special and talented in a unique way, sources said.