India a potential superpower, will seal FTAs on our terms: Goyal

Pointing out that negotiations are confidential, Goyal said one small item or many items could hold back an agreement. “But we are okay with it. The country’s farmers, fishermen, MSMEs have to be protected, domestic manufacturing has to have a level playing field, and there has to be transparency on both sides in how countries operate. We have to ensure that we do not allow people to come in from unfriendly countries through the backdoor. So, many significant issues have to be balanced in a larger perspective,” he said.

Goyal, who is set to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Mumbai North constituency, and holding daily meetings in the area, said that he aimed to make the area slum free and significantly enhance the quality of municipal schools.

“I’ve been toying for many years with an idea of how to make the country slum-free. And now that I get an opportunity to represent an area, it will be a good ‘laboratory’ for me to see how we can work to make that entire area slum-free. And I think one of the ways will be getting more and more people to work in the spirit of cooperatives, rather than being always dependent on real estate builders, and the big guys to come in and solve this problem.”

On public education, he said, “Through digital connect technology, I’ll be able to pick up the entire municipal school infrastructure and bring them to a stage where they also get the same quality of education that a student gets at a private school.”