JOIN USCongress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday sought to reach out to the unorganised labourers promising to give them an identity and field candidates from amongst them in the upcoming elections.
The labourers belonging to the unorganised sector have been drifting away from the Congress and opting for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has posted stunning results in Delhi.
Speaking at a day-long meeting with representatives, largely comprising street vendors, Gandhi suggested that they should try their luck in the electoral fray during the upcoming elections with a strong backing from the Congress.
“There is a need to involve labourers and workers in the political mainstream. Your representatives should find a voice in the Lok Sabha,” a person who attended the meeting quoted Gandhi as saying.
The Congress vice-president has been making a strong pitch for skill development of labourers and making them eligible for accessing employment avenues.
In his public meetings, Gandhi has also been stressing on the need to upgrade 70 crore people to the “middle class”.
“The meaning of policy should be that 70 crore people of the country have a concrete base support so that they are assured that whatever be the circumstances, their condition will not plummet beyond that base. The target in the next five-ten years should be that we upgrade these 70 crore people to middle class. These are the people, who run the country,” Gandhi said.
In the previous elections, the Congress has been focusing on the common man. The party believes that it has succeeded in reducing poverty during the 10-year United Progressive Alliance rule and now needs to target the lower middle class population, which is on the radar of both the AAP and the BJP.
He said people in this category include labourers, security guards and painters, and they go down the poverty line the moment someone falls ill in their family and were struggling hard to provide education to their children.
The participants gave their suggestions, including creating a national commission for labour and uniform wages, to Anganwadi workers.