Centre working to give minimum rights to Northeast people: Rahul

Diphu (Assam): Amid demands for enacting an anti-racism law to protect the rights of people from the Northeast, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Centre is working towards giving certain minimum rights and security to people of the region who are now settled all over India.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. PTI

"You should not only be having these rights in places you belong to like Meghalaya, Tripura and Assam but in the whole of India," 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 Taniam after being allegedly beaten up by some shopkeepers in the national capital some time back.

Acknowledging that there is discrimination against students from Northeast, Gandhi said, "We, at the Centre, are working towards giving certain minimum rights and security to people that one should have in the whole of India. You should not only be having these rights in the places you belong to like Meghalaya, Tripura and Assam but in the whole of India."

During the interaction, Gandhi spoke 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 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 RTI.

"When people talk about corruption it is because only a few people have power centralised in them. We want to open this decision making process," he said.

Gandhi said decision-making is confined to few and at best it is the 4500 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.

"This is the situation which you feel bad about... Decision making about ticket distribution is highly centralised as very few people take decisions on distribution of tickets...Power is centralised. In future we will not give one person or one family the ticket but we will ask you to distribute 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," Gandhi said.

PTI