Rahul Gandhi slams BJP for concentration of power within PMO, says Congress will promote more youngsters

Concentration of power during the UPA government’s tenure was not at Sonia Gandhi’s official residence 10 Janpath, and this was just a misunderstanding, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said, asserting that the party’s future dispensations would see further decentralisation of power. [caption id=“attachment_4179057” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Rahul Gandhi. PTI[/caption] Rahul Gandhi said that Congress governments of the future will be much younger and will have more youth, but that he also values experience and will continue to take the support from traditional wisdom. “It was not at 10, Janpath. That is a misunderstanding,” he replied, when asked at an event whether power was concentrated there. The Congress vice-president, however, was quick to retort and train his guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, “Also, the concentration in the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) was nowhere near the concentration of power in the PMO today. We speak to ministers in the BJP government. Even ministers like Sushma Swaraj and others don’t have power in this government. Only the prime minister has the power,” he said, adding that this is something fundamentally different to how the Congress runs the government. To another question on whether the next Congress government will promote youngsters, Rahul Gandhi, referring to former president Pranab Mukherjee and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, said, “There is value to experience. We will take our traditional wisdom along. We will certainly have younger faces than we did and the Congress government will be a much younger government. But there is also value to experience. We have to have them,” he said, referring to Mukherjee and Singh. “We will also take support of our traditional wisdom which we have,” he added. Admitting that there were shortcomings in the UPA government towards the end of its tenure, he said, “The new government of the Congress would be a much more decentralised government. It would be a government that distributes power much more than even the last Congress government.”