Rahul will successfully galvanise youth power in the country: AICC

New Delhi, Sep 26 (UNI) The Congress Party today said its new AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi would successfully galvanise youth power just as his father Rajiv Gandhi did in the 1980s.

The party, however, dodged a question on if Mr Gandhi would be projected as the next Prime Ministerial candidate.

"No strategy has so far taken place," AICC Spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told mediapersons who wanted to know if the Amethi MP's elevation to the top post in the government is in the offing.

"Mr Rahul Gandhi as party General Secretary and Member of Parliament has a pan-Indian dimension which will be immensely successful," she said, ading that "he will be in the forefront to galvanise youth power in the party and the country and serve as a catalyst of aspirations of the youth." Pointing out that a vast majority of the country's population was young people, she said that the youth had always been in the forefront of social and developmental change.

In this context, Ms Natarajan referred to the dynamic leadership of Rajiv Gandhi that helped to take India to the 21st century as a technological superpower.

Stating that the revamped AICC was a mix of youth and experience, she said Mr Gandhi and the other young leaders inducted in the AICC would lead a youth revolution and take public development to the remotest areas.

Asked why Mr Gandhi could not make any impact as a star campaigner of the party during the last UP assembly elections, Ms Natarajan said : "it is always a combined effort...there were many other factors." When her attention was drawn to the induction of BJP President Rajnath Singh's son into the youth wing of the party in Uttar Pradesh, she said "What BJP has done is a matter of their internal dynamics. But you cannot compare it with Mr Gandhi as the people had already elected him to Parliament from Amethi." AICC General Secretary M Veerappa Moily, who was given charge of Media department in the Monday's reshuffle, said Mr Gandhi would guide the destiny of the youth and rejuvenate the Congress Party, besides providing the kind of energy that was required.

He said the revamping of the AICC was to empower the party to face the elections, whether held today or tomorrow, and build up capacity at all levels.

"Mr Gandhi is the hope of the youth and he will respond to that kind of leadership role," Mr Moily said.

Mr Moily introduced the members of his media department to the Press and assured that the media wing would be "proactive.' "We have nothing to hide...We have no hidden agenda," he said, while asserting that his party believed in transparency.

Besides Ms Natarajan, the dias was shared by Spokespersons Abishek Manu Singhvi, Mohan Prakash and AICC Secretary in charge of Media Tom Vadakkan.

UNI