Bullet train cannot be India’s strength: Rahul Gandhi to Vapi industrialists

“I am saying that bullet train cannot be the strength of India, because it is made in Japan. It is not made in India. If we bring the bullet train here, then it will not be India’s strength; it will be the strength of Japan,” he remarked in his reply during the event where he did not give an introductory speech.

Rahul told the audience gathered at the Vapi Industrial Association Hall that the strength of India lies in being the world’s largest railway network where people can tour the entire country at the cheapest rates. “This needs to be appreciated… My thinking is a little different,” he added. The event in Vapi is the third of its kind that was held during the Congress party’s ongoing poll campaign. The earlier interactions were in Rajkot and Vadodara.

While taking a number of questions on GST, Rahul Gandhi told the audience that the very structure of GST is flawed. “GST in this form will not run in Hindustan… If Congress comes back to power (in 2019), we will reform GST.

When asked why did the Congress allow the GST Bill to be passed in the Rajya Sabha if they knew it was flawed, Gandhi said, “We had tried stopping. We could see the problem in the design. But an atmosphere was created that it became the nation’s mood to see the GST passed. They kept on repeatedly saying that Congress is blocking GST.”

When asked to state his opinion on the country’s education sector Gandhi pointing to institutions like IITs and IIMs said that the government’s main job was to provide competition to the private sector. “If the education sector is privatised then profit will become the only motive. Quality will deteriorate. Government’s job is to support low cost education… The problem in Gujarat is that 90 percent of the higher education institutes are private. About 15000 public schools have been closed. The backbone of the education system has been broken and the quality is sure to suffer.”

Rahul also spoke on how the current dispensation in Delhi was favouring 15 large industries, while ignoring the MSMes like those in Vapi.