Rahul Gandhi inaugurates platform for liberal ideas

With an eye on the 2019 Assembly elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday inaugurated the Samruddha Bharat Foundation in Bangalore, calling it a platform where liberal ideas will be propagated.

"There's a feeling (among people) that, 'let's go to the past' and why have these forces been unleashed on us," said Gandhi, while addressing the gathering. "This platform is a way for the common man to break away from that stranglehold."

The Foundation, which has Shyam Benegal, Syeda Hameed, Prof. Mridula Mukherjee, KTS Tulsi, Gurdeep Sappal, and Pushparaj Deshpande as trustees, will also have Vivek Tankha, Krishna Byregowda, Dr Sukhdeo Thorat, Priyank Kharge, and KC Ramamurthy as advisors.

A party official said that the Foundation will serve as an "umbrella platform for all liberal, republican, and secular forces". "The Foundation will try to do three things: act as a think tank, fuel a movement and act as a platform where socio-economic problems of the people can be discussed."