Rahul Gandhi tries to win back youth from PM Narendra Modi, first stop at Mount Carmel

BENGALURU: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is re-starting his project to connect with the youth by meeting the students and staff of Bengaluru’s most prestigious girls’ college, Mount Carmel for an interaction “the role of the youth for a vibrant India.”

Gandhi’s grandmother Indira visited this 67-year-old college in the 1950s, while his father Rajiv visited Mount Carmel’s sister college in Ernakulam. The college has also played host to former President A P J Abdul Kalam, Bharat Ratna C N R Rao, former chief election commissioner T N Seshan and also former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.

“The college approached us and asked for a visit from Rahul Gandhi. We agreed and with this, he is beginning his programme to connect with college students all over the country and reach out to them on national issues,” Karnataka Youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad told ET.

The reach out to the students, according to another Congress leader, gains significance in the background of colleges being picking grounds for radical elements in both the Hindutva brigade and the extreme Islamist groups. Analyst Narender Pani, however, felt: “It is just an attempt by Rahul Gandhi to reach out to a section of the society that has gone towards the BJP. Radicalisation and intolerance cannot be reduced to political points, they need a much deeper debate.”

College principal Sister Arpana made it clear that the intent of the interaction was not political. “The students’ union decided on the speaker and we went ahead with it. We are holding such interactions to deepen their understanding and make them better citizens of the country,” she told ET.

Namrata Chandrashekhar, president, MCC Student Union, said that students would basically ask him questions on his vision for India’s education system. “As a prominent national leader, we do expect him to speak about the climate of intolerance. We look forward to signs of change from him. We also feel the intolerance, in smaller aspects. For example, in spite of democracy and our rights as students, we have forced to follow a dress code in college,” she said.

The union’s cultural secretary Sanika Athawale said they approached the Congress vice-president because he was a youth icon. “ An interaction with him would give us insights into politics. It was not a conscious decision to get only him. It is just that he confirmed before we could reach out to others,” she said.