Rahul Gandhi meets with 150 young leaders to discuss Lok Sabha elections strategy

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi held deliberations with over 150 young leaders on the strategy for Lok Sabha polls and sought feedback on his primary experiment to select candidates in elections.

Union Ministers RPN Singh, Sachin Pilot, Jitendra Singh, party MPs Ajay Maken, Sandeep Dikshit, Priya Dutt, Meenkashi Natarajan, former minister Kumari Selja, Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza and Delhi PCC chief Arvinder Singh Lovely were among the youth brigade that interacted with Gandhi on Monday.

The half-day long session with the leaders on a range of issues took place before the party releases its manifesto tomorrow.

It was a free-wheeling discussion on issues related to women, farmers, youths and labour and the way to open the political system, a pet subject of the Congress Vice President.

A key part of the discussion was on ways to engage youth across multiple platforms including on social media, which is being used to the hilt by the BJP in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.

Emphasising on the need to harness the potential of the youth, Gandhi said the task ahead was to open up the political system, infuse into it the energy of the youth and push through greater devolution of power to take the government closer to the people.

He also lauded the UPA government's work in the last ten years, saying it laid the foundation of an inclusive development model that delivered high growth and at the same time provided safety nets for the most vulnerable sections of society through rights-based paradigm and other welfare programmes.

A large number of women leaders also participated in the deliberations.

The leaders also discussed the recently-concluded primaries experiment in 16 Lok Sabha seats across the country, a brainchild of Gandhi to give party office bearers a voice in candidate selection.