Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday dwelt at length on the ideal Centre-state relations, commenting on how Indian society works and pointing out its systemic flaws.
Addressing the CII annual general meeting, the Congress scion said, “It (the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution) created the representational layer at the bottom for which political parties used only to MLAs and MPs were not prepared. As an MP, I have a `5-crore MPLAD fund but each of the 700 pradhans in my constituency is responsible for work amounting to `2 crore.” That, according to Rahul, amounts to the significant difference.
“Parties are unable to decide to what use they can put the energy of the grassroots,” he said.
Most of his address revolved around the idea that people’s voice has to be unshackled and heard with compassion.
How many people decide who will be the 5,000 odd MPs and MLAs in the country, he asked and answered it himself by suggesting that only 200-300 people of all parties put together decide how the country was run and that explained the poor relationship between the Centre and the states.
The Centre is much too strong at the expense of the periphery, he said. His beehive analogy of how Indians work, live and behave as against the Chinese who often just follow the dragon furthers his theory.
His assessment is that the buzz of the beehive is from below and the top has to hear it and find solutions. Being an authoritarian state, the Chinese power is more direct whereas the Indian power is more subtle and tangential.
Comparisons with the BJP’s Narendra Modi were triggered by Rahul himself when he referred obliquely to how a single person couldn’t solve the problems of a billion while only empowerment of a billion people could lead to a solution.
The remedial measures he says the Centre has initiated appeared at best notional and at worst deliberate attempts to bypass the state.
The MNREGA scheme, for instance, allots money directly to the districts and the disbursement is in the hands of the district magistrates. The Food Security scheme is a similar attempt to create a direct bridge with the grassroots.