Adoni (AP) (PTI): MP Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the president was the supreme authority in the Congress and whoever got elected to the post would decide on the way forward (for the party).
Responding to a query during his brief interaction with media during the Bharat Jodo Yatra here, Rahul Gandhi said the new president would decide on what my role and how I will be deployed .
Obviously , Rahul replied when asked if he would be reporting to the new president.
President is the supreme authority in the Congress and everyone reports to him. My role I am very clear Congress president will decide what my role is and how I will be deployed, he remarked.
At one point, Rahul said, “It is for Kharge to decide but later corrected himself to whoever gets elected, that gentleman will decide”. Rahul observed that Kharge and Tharoor are people with experience and understanding .”They do not need my advice”, he added.
Questioned about Shashi Tharoor's allegation of irregularities in the Congress president election in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul said the party had an institutional framework to deal with it.
We are the only party that has an election commission inside it with a TN Seshan-type of person. Mistry is an absolutely fair person. Our EC will take a decision on the irregularities, he said.
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Ahmedabad: Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday said that the Congress party is committed to removing the 50% ceiling on reservations for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) in education and government jobs.
Speaking at a Congress session in Ahmedabad, Gandhi said the party would implement across India what the Telangana government has recently done. Telangana had recently passed a bill raising the reservation for Backward Classes (BCs) to 42%, taking the overall reservation above the 50% limit set by the Supreme Court in a landmark 1992 judgment.
“Telangana has taken a revolutionary step and shown the way to the country. I want to assure you that this 50 per cent wall will be broken. What happened in Telangana, we will do in Delhi and for the entire country,” Gandhi said.
He argued that the population composition in Telangana—where around 90% of residents belong to OBCs, extremely backward classes, Dalits, minorities, and Adivasis—is similar to the rest of the country. Given this, he said, the existing limit on reservations does not reflect social realities and should be dismantled.
Gandhi reiterated the Congress party’s demand for a nationwide caste census, stating that without accurate data on caste composition, it is not possible to ensure fair distribution of government benefits, educational opportunities, and jobs.
He also referred to the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in the Indra Sawhney (Mandal Commission) case, which capped reservations at 50%. The Congress has consistently argued that the cap restricts justice for marginalised groups and needs to be re-evaluated.
Earlier this week, during a 'Samvidhan Suraksha Sammelan' in Patna, Gandhi had said, “I told Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha, right in front of him: if you don't dismantle this artificial 50 per cent barrier on reservations, we will break it, destroy it, and throw it away.”
In Ahmedabad, Gandhi also accused the BJP of having an “anti-Dalit mindset,” referring to a recent incident in Rajasthan, where a former BJP MLA reportedly used Ganga water to "purify" a temple after a Congress leader from a Dalit background took part in a consecration ceremony.