 You will throw at me. I'm also frankly not only here to give you my answers, I'm also here to try and understand your perspective. So if you have comments or if you would like me to know something about Orissa, I'm more than happy to listen and understand. I think Orissa has a very special role today and I'll take you back into history. This is the state that transformed Emperor Ashok from a violent emperor to a non-violent institutional builder. It is in your history, it is in your nature to have conversations, to have discussions. You are a decentralized society, you are a society, a thinking society. So I think a lot of the solutions to what is going on in our country, particularly with the type of attack that we are having on institutions, both unfortunately in Delhi and in Orissa, sort of massive centralization of power. And this idea that one man can provide the answers to billions of people, which I fundamentally don't believe. I believe that if Orissa has to grow, if India has to thrive, then the voice of the people of Orissa has to participate in that discussion. You simply cannot without that. And anybody who believes that one person can do miracles in this country or one person can be the fountain of all wisdom but doesn't understand the culture or the ethos of this state or of this country. So I am looking forward to having a conversation with you. I don't want to make my opening remarks too long. I'll make some closing remarks which will sort of give you a sense of my perspective. I look forward to as many questions as you would like to ask me. Thank you very much for having me here. Thank you. That was quite short indeed. I hope the audience has picked up enough threads to come with questions. Before I open it up to a question and answer session, a few ground rules. I hope all the mobile phones are switched off. Please do not indulge in parallel conversations when a person is asking a question and the speaker is answering. It's a request. I would also discourage you to switch on your phones for live camera-graphy. I can see some of the people at the back are doing that. It distracts. I think we have a very important subject and if we can all focus on the discussions, it would be great. Before you ask a question, please introduce yourself and keep your questions as short as possible, brief and focused. If you have a comment to make, please say you have a comment to make. We would make time to come back for that comment, but first we would like to take all the questions. Let us try to give everyone in this room, as many people, a chance to ask questions. Keep it short, keep it brief and keep it around the theme of today's discussion. Can I see hands going up? Can you introduce yourself? The person in the... As you fit. I'm going to do all good if you kind of stand up and take it. More interactive, more informal. Good afternoon. My name is Chandrabhanu Patnaik. I work with a university, Sanjay University here. I was hinted in your brief remarks about democratic institutions being challenged. That's exactly what I wanted to ask you. How would you respond to the current scenario where every democratic institution in health, in education, minorities are being constantly challenged? What does one do at this point of time? What are your reactions to that? Well, you currently have one institution called the RSS, which is the mother ship of the BJP, that believes that it should be the only institution in this country. And the idea is to systematically penetrate people into all India's institutions. The Congress Party has a completely different view on how institutions support this country. So we simply do not believe that institutions should not be independent. We believe that there is a link between India's success, India's constitution, India's advancement, and its institutional independence. So very simply, we have always and will respect institutions like the judiciary, like the election commission, like the education system, universities. So it is a mindset difference. We are much more interested in bringing in the voice of the people of this country into governance. Sometimes, frankly, it looks like you're tick. When the Congress Party is operating, there's a lot of chaos, there's a lot of noise, but that is part of democracy. So we are ideologically completely against this assault that is taking place. And we simply will not, we will not allow it, we will not do it. Frankly, we'll have to do a lot of repair work, because what has been done over the last five years is actually devastating to this country. For the first time in our history, Supreme Court judges are coming out, taking the name of Judge Lawyer, indicating that the president of the BJP is involved in a murder case, and saying we're not allowed to do our work. This has never happened in Indian history, right? And you can see, you can see this imprint of ISIS. If you go to the North Block and South Block, or if you ask BJP ministers, they will all tell you that they have OSDs positioned under them directly from Nagpur. We simply don't believe that one state, one ideology, one set of people should run this country. We believe that 1.2 billion people should run this country, and the institutions are their instrument. And we will defend them. Yeah. Fantastic point. It's all about collective leadership, leadership plus people. It's not leadership and then people. Can I go back from the front desk? Yes? It would be some state, almost 25 years back, and had the privilege of working under your father. My question is, all the parties, yours, BJP, or whatever else is in power, they all neglect the middle class. If your party comes to power, what do you do for the middle class? Well, I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair to say that all parties neglect the middle class. I think what the Congress party did between 1991 and 2014 massively helped create the middle class. And our policy of liberalization was, frankly, the set of policies that built the entire middle class. So I don't think it's fair to say that the middle class is ignored. Well, now you have to ask Mr. Modi that question. But I will tell you what I think the Congress party can and should do that will help the middle class. Couple of things. The monopolization of monopolization and capture of the education system and healthcare system. And the idea that if a middle class person wants to send his child to university or school, he has to pay lakhs and lakhs and potentially crores of rupees to get him into a decent education. Education needs to be challenged. So you need to put a significantly more bigger amount of money into healthcare and into education. And you need to start looking at building high quality education and healthcare infrastructure. I'm not saying that there is no role for the private sector. But the flagships and the standard must be set by large numbers of public sector institutions like the IITs. If you think about it, the IITs as an institution were invented in the 50s. And we keep hopping on how good the IITs are and they are very good. But they are 50-year-old institutions. And one needs to think about how to transform the IIT into a 21st century institution. The value that is currently locked in the IITs needs to be opened out. For example, it is this exact same situation in healthcare. And then if you want to talk about jobs in this country, you have a complete capture of the banking system. 12.5 lakh crores of India's banking money is in the hands of 30 or 40 businessmen. If you're a small businessman or a mid-sized businessman, you deal with demonetization. You deal with GST. But you are not forgiven your loans. Mr Vijay Malia can run away with 9000 crores. Mr Nirav Modi can run away with 30,000 crores, which is equivalent to one Narega for one year. And not a word is said. Mehul Chowkshi can run away with 30,000 crores. Anil Ambani can be given 30,000 crores just like that. Stolen, frankly, from the people of Orissa because you have a jail over here. So some of these monopolies need to be challenged. A young middle-class businessman who wants to set up an industry needs to have access, similar access to the banking system as Mr Anil Ambani does. He needs to have similar access to the political system as Mr Anil Ambani does. And if we centralize power, if everything is run outside the prime minister's office, from the prime minister's office or from the chief minister's office, well, then only 15 people can benefit. 15, 20 people who are close to him can benefit. So the single biggest step, and this is where Orissa can teach us a huge amount of lessons, is decentralization of power, bringing power to the people. I think that is the broad direction in which I would push. Also, things like RTI, things like the Lokpal bill, which conveniently have been forgotten. RTI is a huge defender of the middle class. A weapon of the middle class. But today the RTI is dead. So giving the middle class protections, giving the middle class certain basic support, and making sure that the bureaucracy can't ride roughshod over the middle class. Those are the things we would think about. Distinction between education as a private service, or it should be a public good first. That distinction has been made pretty well. Not a private service. A money-making enterprise. Because it's not a private service today. Today it is purely a money-making enterprise. In the context of Bhuvaneswar, there is another sort of anxiety that today grapples with the middle class. This is about what impact automation, artificial intelligence could have on technology-driven jobs. Because here the aspiration is that Bhuvaneswar should emerge as a tech hub. And we have a lot of IT companies. And the kind of jobs that get generated for a lot of middle class people here are vanishing rapidly. What would be your approach to dealing with this challenge? The central challenge if you ask me. I'll ask you a question to begin with. How come automation is not having an impact on job creation in China? How come China, in a world which is automating, is producing 50,000 new jobs in every 24 hours? Why is it that automation is a problem in Europe? Automation is a problem in India. But automation doesn't seem to bother the Chinese. When I had gone to Kailash, I met a couple of their ministers and they were saying, no, job creation is not a problem in China at all. We have plenty of jobs. In fact, we have too many jobs. So the real issue is if you are actually producing things and if you are in the technological stream, you do not have a problem. You do have a problem if you are producing the low value added jobs. If you are doing body shopping, then yes, you have a big problem. But if you are actually producing things, you don't have such a big problem. The problem is that India is frankly not producing things. And neither is the West. Production today has been completely dominated and captured by the Chinese. What we are facing, and this is something that India has to accept and it is refusing to accept. What you are facing is an extremely competitive China that is beating everybody at the production here. And India has to, India frankly is the only country that can step up to this challenge. India talks about, Modi Ji talks about making India. What's the actual result? 24 hours, 50,000 jobs every day in China. In the same 24 hours, India produces 450 jobs. This is my data, this is the data of the government of India in the Lok Sabha. So I am not a believer. The same idea was put forward that computers will wipe out jobs. No, I am not a believer that automation is going to wipe out jobs. You will still need the people to build the computers. You will still need the software engineers to do the automation. You will still need all those people. But are you in that game or are you not in that game? And that to me is the real question. And frankly, today India is not in the game. And we might not like to hear it, but that's the truth. Well, the better educated is always capable of dealing with the political changes better than the poorly educated. How do we ensure that everyone gets better education? I'll take one step back. Number one, you simply cannot forget about agriculture. Today, and this is going on in every single state, today governments are under the impression that agriculture is a weight. That agriculture is something that really we just have to deal with unfortunately. In fact, agriculture is the backbone of any country. And huge number of jobs are going to come from agriculture if India re-thinks agriculture. And I'm not talking simply about giving a farm loan waiver here and a farm loan waiver there. No, I'm talking about a transformation of the agricultural system. I'm talking of rethinking how the Indian farmer connects to the rest of the world. Number two, small and medium businesses are going to give you the jobs. Large businesses are not going to give you the jobs. What has been done over the last five years is a massacre of small and medium businesses. Demonetization, GST have literally broken the back of these businesses. Instead of seeing them as our biggest assets, instead of seeing them as our biggest strength, which they are, we have basically, Mr. Modi has destroyed them. So the central question in front of our country is how do you produce jobs? And India has a job crisis. There's no question about that. There is no state in India which today is not facing a job crisis. Now, huge part of that is education. You want an education in India. You have a system where it is mostly privatized. A lot of it is not job-related. A lot of it has nothing to do with the type of skills that are required. So you need to re-engineer these things and realign these things. Today, if you listen to the conversation in India and you read the newspapers, the main thing people talk about is growth. If we have 9% growth, we are doing well. If we have 7% growth, we are not doing so well. If we have 6% growth, we add up to a problem. Nobody talks about jobs. You can grow at 9% and still have no jobs. And that is really the problem in India. So we have to change our mindset and we have to take our mindset much like we did when we carried out the Green Revolution, much like we did when we did liberalization, that we are now searching for a new paradigm. And that our old paradigm that worked from 1990 to 2000 and 10 or 11 is no longer working. And what the current government is trying to do is trying to rework that paradigm. And those tools are not going to work. It's finished. So we have to re-engineer and rethink what are the tools going to be. We are at a, if you want to call it, we are at a liberalization, pre-liberalization, pre-Green Revolution moment where India can no longer tinker around. India now has to make one or two or three key strategic decisions and push them hard. And the central problem is how do we deal with agriculture? How do we deal with the job crisis? And how do we align our healthcare and education system to provide the protection and the support that is required to fight this battle? We are entering a completely new world. You are internationally, we are moving from a one-power dominated world to a growing China. And frankly, we have to compete with China. And we have to accept that the single biggest challenge is China's ability to produce job after job. I mean, if you look behind this mic, it's probably got made in China written on it. If you look behind your phone, it's got made in China written on it. Everything is being made in China. And we have to, as a powerful country, as a confident country, as a country that has shown the world what it can do, we have to take up this challenge and say, we're going to do it now. And that is where Orissa has a role to play. We have to rethink our development paradigm. That's the fantastic takeaway from here. Can I now turn to a lady? We'll come back. We'll try and come back. Can we have a couple more microphones so that we don't waste distributing them? Well, congratulations first of all for your last victory, Raulji. My name is Rootpanna Mohanti and I am working for women development in Orissa last two decades and my subject is conflict resolution and peace building. I have visited all over Orissa and visiting frequently and tribal, rural, everywhere I have gone. I am only keen for Orissa's development. Of course, I am Indian. But I just wanted to ask you, you know, there is an election. There is an election in front of us. And BJP has a structural board bank. BJP is also doing a very popular campaign like Jwabh Maguchi Orissa, Jwabh Mangre Orissa. So they are taking a lot of issues with them. And Congress leaders, big leaders are resigning. In this point of time, what is your strategy to popularize your ideas or Congress mandate in Orissa for, you know, collecting the vote? Because I just wanted to... Congress has so many good policies. They are being like right to information, right to poor, right to education. And a lot of things, you know, 73rd amendment. But why there is no visibility or success stories for your, you know, these bills and all. These are all programs. Why there is no visibility for these? Thank you very much. I think there will be some more questions around politics. We will all take it all together. I can quickly answer this. See, the BJP model and the BJT model is the same. What is called the Gujarat model is basically a very simple deal. The biggest industrialists in the state fund the marketing of the chief minister. And the chief minister hands over the state government to a couple of key bureaucrats who run the state. And the voice of the people is not included in this conversation. That is very different than the way the Congress runs the state. The Congress, of course, has a chaotic conversation. I am sorry to say it, but the Congress has a chaotic conversation. We allow our leaders to talk to each other, sometimes even have a disagreement. And sometimes, frankly, it doesn't look very nice. Believe me, Mr Modi's entire cabinet is agreeing with him. But none of them have the guts to open them out. It's a fact. In fact, they'll tell me that. So there is a difference in the way the BJP and the BJT run the state. We don't want a bureaucratic dictatorship. We want a people's democratic state. That's what we're looking for. And frankly, it'll be chaotic. And there'll be a lot of complaints because the tribals will want something. The Dalits will want something else. The middle class will want something else. Industrialists will want something else. And what we do is we bring all of them together in a room. And we create the discussion that allows the best way forward. What is going on in Orissa today? Suddenly Mr Naveen Patnaik has woken up to the idea that farmers need his help. What has he been doing for the last 10-15 years? Why is it suddenly now that in Chhattisgarh we are giving MSP and that we've done farm loan waiver? Now suddenly Mr Naveen Patnaik has woken up to the plight of the farmers. What has been going on with the Adivasis of this state? What has been happening to the Dalit communities of this state? So these are the types of things that we will challenge. But most importantly, what the Congress brings is a conversation like this. I'd like to ask you a simple question. Has Mr Naveen Patnaik had a conversation like this with you? Ever. Has Mr Modi ever had a conversation like this with you? I am coming out here. Why? Because I respect your voice. And I am putting myself out. I am taking a risk because I can get questions. I can get difficult questions. But I learn. And I understand that actually you are the people with the knowledge. If I am under the impression that I know more than you about Orissa, then there's something wrong with me. So my model is, you know, you obviously know more about Orissa. And why I'm having a conversation with you is because I want to get some knowledge to get some understanding from you. Because I want to understand what is the spirit of Orissa saying today? What are the people of Orissa saying today? I don't really want to come and lecture you about what I think. I can tell you about what is going on in India. I can tell you how we are fighting the BJP. I can tell you how we are going to defeat them in 2019. But you are the people who are going to tell me, listen, this is how you need to think about Orissa. That's not how Mr Naveen Patnaik thinks. That's not how Mr Narendra Modi thinks. Mr Narendra Modi is under the impression that he knows everything about everything. And that is the big difference. So ours is a dynamic process. When we run a state, we listen to people. Maybe he's very upset. We'll go and say, tell us what's going on. Why are you upset? Okay, you're upset. Let's try and fix it. That feedback loop is not there in the BJD and the BJP. That's the big difference between us and them. I don't know if that answers your question. Mr Naveen Patnaik, leading until the movement in Orissa, also we want the movement should be all in your movement. Your father had been to Kalehandi, learning that children are being sold for few coins. Yes. If we now go to Kalehandi or Orissa, we'll find hamlets full of Buddhas in their 20s and 30s. Hamlets full of? With Buddhas. Unlike western countries, our youth consumes so much liquor that they get intoxicated. And within a few years, they die. So it is the number one problem. Not only for Orissa, it is pan-Indian problem. Unfortunately, Congress which implemented and that Congress also here in Orissa, also enacted anti-licker movement act in 1956, which is not implemented. My request is to consider this problem. Regents problem we understand because it involves last section and now the economy, etc. But liquor is not mentioned by any political party. I am surprised. And this nation will be re-surrected if country will be free from liquor. Thank you very much. Thank you. But you don't have a question for me. There is no question. Well, Congress has not abandoned it. For example, in Kerala, we had a policy on liquor and a number of our states are considering this policy. But my position on this, frankly, is these are decisions that state leadership should make. These are not decisions that I should be making or the national level Congress party should be making about Orissa. These questions with regards to Orissa, these are questions frankly that the Orissa leadership should answer and not me. Yes, the man at back. Myself, Dr. Harish Chaudhary, Consolidant Critical Care AMRA Hospital in Bhubaneswar. My question is sir, earlier you have already mentioned healthcare for all. You know, every year 16% population getting below BPL line because of out-of-pocket expenditure. Yes. And unlabeled CM Udissa Naveen Patnaag has declared health for free for both BPL and appeal family till date. And Aishman Bharat is going on in nationally. What will be your vision in future for healthcare for all? What is your analysis and impression of Aishman Bharat? Sir, my impression is Aishman Bharat is targeting to a particular population but neglecting as someone is asking the middle class. Someone might be critical job. Someone might be a retired person getting pension only 2000 or 5000. His appeal which is not included in Aishman Bharat. Well, I was in my constituency yesterday and I was speaking to some of the Pradhan's in my constituency and they mentioned Aishman Bharat to me and one of the Pradhan's was telling me that he has 12,000 people living in his area and according to Aishman Bharat, 35 of them have been given insurance. Now 35 out of 12,000 doesn't look to me like universal healthcare. Number one. Number two, you can't have an insurance scheme without hospitals that are actually able to provide support and the cure that is required for that insurance scheme. So an insurance scheme isn't simply a card that you give to somebody and say here is a card and have some fun. So you can't have these discussions where you say yes, I am giving universal healthcare and then to go to a hospital somebody has to go to 100 kilometers. That's not how it works. So if you're talking at the national level, I would put much more money than is currently being put into healthcare and education and I would do that very, very aggressively because I completely agree with you and this is a fact that the single biggest cause of falling back into poverty is out of pocket expenses in healthcare. So it is actually a basic minimum that we have to provide our people. How much money has been put into Aishman Bharat? You're talking about a national insurance scheme, a scheme that is supposed to transform hospitals, a scheme that is supposed to give insurance to the entire country. How much money has been put in? Only 1.1% of GDP. Okay. Now let me give you a couple of directions on healthcare. In Rajasthan, we had a very successful scheme of providing free medicines to large parts of Rajasthan. It was very, very successful and a very interesting scheme. In a number of Congress states, we have tested out different types of insurance models. So those are the type of things we would be looking at. But you can't talk about healthcare and about education without putting money into that system. And frankly, the biggest crime that has been committed by Mr. Narendra Modi is he can give 30,000 crores to Mr. Anil Amani in the Rafael contract. But he can't put that much, he can't put even 5% of that money into Aishman Bharat. My name is Umi Dhaniel and I work in an international agency. My concern is the Naregana has been completed around 13 years. It started with a wonderful program which was supposed to provide employment in a pan-India manner. Now what's happening is that this has been reduced to 2,500 blocks now, which is being implemented. And I can give you a statistics like it can give you an idea what's happening in Orissa. 64,000,000 people have registered for job card and only 13,000,000 people are working in that. And less than 1,000,000 people have got 100 days of employment. How do you see this? I think this is one of the poor people's program initiated. How do you see that? How it will be regalvanized and taken out? First of all, there are a lot of misunderstandings about Manrega. And I'd like to clear one or two of those misunderstandings. Manrega was seen by a lot of analysts as a handout to poor people. And that was universally they would write in the newspapers that, you know, why are you handing out money to the poor people? Manrega was not a handout to poor people. Manrega was an attempt at shaping the Indian labor market. It was an attempt at creating a minimum wage in India and it was a very successful attempt. It transformed the lives of millions and millions of people. And it didn't only help poor people. If you ask economists today, those same economists who are critical of Manrega, many of them have come to me and said, listen, actually the growth that was created in 2006, 7, 8, 9 was the result of Manrega. Because what Manrega did was it created an economic structure in rural India. It sent money into rural India and started economies in rural India. So it not only helped the poor, it also helped large numbers of manufacturers, a large number of companies that provided goods to those people who were buying their goods. So it was actually a comprehensive strategic move which paid huge dividends. Mr. Narendra Modi frankly doesn't understand Narega. Mr. Narendra Modi stands in parliament and says, Narega may allow people to dig holes. No, Narega was a labor market correction. It was a fantastic move that allowed India for the first time in its history to have a minimum wage. And now what Mr. Narendra Modi is doing, he is destroying Manrega. There is a connection between rural economic growth and programs that support the poor, like Manrega, like Right to Food, like Right to Information. And we intend to carry forward some of those ideas. Manrega and potentially new ideas that can help and support poor people in the villages. And we completely condemn what Mr. Modi is doing to Manrega because this is a crime. It is a crime against the poor people who live in our villages. And the same is being done in Orissa by the Chief Minister. I think since we wanted to take a few questions from the social media, it would be unfair if we, there have been lots of questions, but it would be unfair if we do not address at least a few questions. One of the questions that I can come up is, you and your family have been at the receiving end of your opponent's vitually hateful campaign. Despite all this, how do you manage to keep yourself focused and motivated? This is coming from Supriya Pradhar. Look, I am perfectly happy for someone to have a different opinion than me. I am also perfectly happy for someone to disagree with me and dislike me. I don't have a problem with it. I do what I have to do and frankly, I learn from people who are nasty to me. I don't believe that just because you think differently than me, I have to hate you. I think hate is a weakness. I think hatred is blindness and I am not interested in it. And honestly, I'll tell you, for me, and it's been quite amazing because the best thing that happened to me as a politician, as a human being is the abuse that I got. I am seriously telling you, you are laughing, but I am seriously telling you, this is the biggest lesson for me. The abuse that I got from the BJP and the RSS has been the biggest gift they could give me. Because when someone abuses you and you look at it, understand it and take it as a gift, it's a very powerful thing. It actually teaches you a lot. It teaches you much more than your friends can teach you. So I look at Mr. Modi when he abuses me and I feel like giving him a hug and tell you. I don't have a problem with him. I realize that he disagrees with me and I disagree with him and I will fight him and I will try and make sure he's not a minister, but I don't hate him. I give him the right to have his opinion. And frankly, this is Orissa's spirit. This is the spirit that takes a warrior like Ashok who suddenly transforms and says, listen, actually, I don't need to hate people. This is your culture and frankly, it's Indian culture. What is being spread about? What is being spread about today by the BJP and the RSS is Indian culture. This is not Indian culture. This is not Indian religion. Indian religion is to respect everybody, respect even the person who's attacking you. That is what our ethos is and that is what the Congress party defends. Sometimes, as I said, it looks very funny. We'll have a lot of fighting going on in our party. But that's part of our system, part of our ethos and we respect different views. You know, you mentioned, people have left the party, you mentioned about Mr. Srikanth Jain. I completely respect his views. I completely respect his opinion. He's upset with the Congress party and I understand that also. And I have no animosity towards anybody. That's our nature. That's our design. And what has happened to me, frankly, and you mentioned, you know, that my grandmother was killed and my father was killed. I realized that it's no point carrying hate around. It's a waste of time. It is not beneficial. It is harmful. It's not productive. So I've just left that behind. And my message to anybody who hates me is hate me as much as you want. I love you. Has this audience given you good reasons to come back again quickly? Several times. Look, I'm a straightforward blunt guy. No, if you... No, I'm going to make one complaint. I'm going to make one complaint. See, you're sort of silent. You're not... Maybe this is Orissa culture, but you're sort of not pushing. Push. Put me in trouble. So he will come back again very quickly, several times. So we have limited time. You have? We can carry on five, six minutes. I also have a few questions. I've come here to make a relationship with you. So you talk to me as if you're my family. There you go. Just one second. Somebody's waiting. I want you to talk to me as if you're talking to your family. If you want to say something that you're not happy with, tell me. If you want, you know, be open. Yeah. My name is Aurobindo Bahra. I am a former civil servant. Rahulji, I'm happy to know that you'd like to come back. And you would like to be seen as a member of the family. Thank you so much. One would like to have a prolonged conversation with you and try to know your views, your take on issues that are besetting their country and the world today. But to be very short in brief, I will ask a very personal question. Can you name two of your role models? One from your own illustrious family and the other outside. I mean, I have, everybody has something that one can appreciate. You know, everybody brings something to the table. I mean, if you want to talk about role model, people I appreciate who I think did great things, I would say, you know, that would be high on my list. Among rulers, I would say, April Ashok was quite impressive. He comes from here. But I don't normally look at one person and say, oh, that's exactly what I want to be. I would say, oh, that's interesting thing about this person. That's interesting thing about that person. That's interesting. For example, I'm fighting Mr. Narendra Modi, right? But there are certain things about him I find impressive. Now, he's not my role model, but there are things that I find that he does pretty well. And I appreciate. I don't have a problem looking at my opponent and saying, ah, look, that person, Mr. Vajpayee speaks well. Why should I be blinded just because he's my opponent? I should be able to see, ah, look, Mr. Vajpayee has given such a good speech. Or Mr. Advani is 80 years old and he's fit as a fiddle. He's trim. He walks. So, I mean, one should be able to see in everybody some strength and then you'll also see, yes, he's a human being, so he has this weakness. So I'm much more like that. I would say from, say, my great grandfather, I like his depth of understanding of things. From my father, I like his ability to see and connect technology to the future of India. From my grandmother, I like her aggressiveness and her ability to, you know, take strong decisions. From my mother, I like maybe her patience. From Mahatma Gandhi, I like his wisdom. So I look everywhere. And I'm sure if, I'm sure if you have a conversation with me for half an hour, I will tell you that you're my role model as far as this issue is concerned. Well, I will be failing in my job as a journalist if I don't get some headlines out of it. Rahulji, I used my privilege to now take a few questions. Priyanka Gandhi. Should we say? Yeah. The much awaited, the much awaited entry of Priyanka Gandhi into politics. What is it that made her take a plunge? What is it that made you go for this? No, I had, I think I've had in the media that, oh, this is a decision that has been taken over the last 10 days. Actually, this decision was taken some years back. I've been having a discussion with my sister about her joining politics and her pushback to me was that my children are very young and I need to spend time looking after them. And now her children have reached an age where one of them is going to university and the other one is about to go to university. So that was, this was a discussion that we've been having for a while now. Tell me, as brothers and sisters, did you have fistfights growing up? Did you have arguments? Do you have arguments? And when you have arguments, who do you think? We, we, I always get informed when it's required. We have, it's quite a strange thing. If you pick up the phone and you ask my sister, listen, what do you think about this issue? And you pick up the phone and you ask me and we're sitting in different rooms. 80% of the time you'll get the same answer. Really. So she's like, we've, you have to understand my relationship with my sister. We have been through hell of a lot together. We've been through, everybody thinks that, oh look, you know, you come from this illustrious family and everything is easy. It's actually not that easy. We've had my father assassinated, my grandmother assassinated, huge political battles, wins in political battles, losses in political battles. So we've been through very hard sort of situations. And that has brought us very close together. So our way of operating is we give each other space. If I say to my sister, you know, I want that space, my sister says that space is yours. And if my sister says, I want that space, I say that space is yours. So there is a, there is a given take that goes on between us and a lot of conversation. Is she going to come and campaign in Odisha? And if she does, how extensive will that? I mean, you'll have to, we'll have to, we'll have to see about exactly where and how she campaigns. That's something that we'll probably decide. We haven't really decided right now. But her main job, as we have sort of discussed, is to help revive the Congress party idea in Uttar Pradesh. How does 2019 look like now? What's your latest assessment on what the country might see in April-May in terms of the mandate unraveling? The opposition will win the election in 2019. There's no doubt. There's no, there's no doubt about that. And it's, there's two things in Indian politics that are absolutely fatal. Number one is when the Indian people start to believe that the person in power does not listen or respect their view. That's number one. And number two is when you get opposition unity. So we are now at a point where opposition is so united that it is practically impossible for the BJP to win the election. I think if your words were to come true, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a lot of time, most of me, and he might want to spend a lot of that time on yoga. But if you were to spend a lot of time reading books, what would be a book that you would recommend Prime Minister Modi to read? I would, no, I would recommend him to read, can I, can I have two? Can I say two? Yeah. I would recommend him to read the Gita. This is, and, and the Gita you cannot, you cannot really understand Gita in one reading. Because it's a evolution. So I would recommend him to read it a couple of times, not just once. And the second book I would recommend is I Am That by Swami Nisargadatta. That is my, my personal favorite. Well, thank you. That is also a similar book that, that teaches you how insignificant one is when compared to the universe. Maybe on his next birthday, because he has asked his party men and other colleagues not to present bookies and instead come with books. Maybe on his next birthday, would you like to present a copy? I'll give you a copy, you can give it to him. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's pretty risky proposition. Well, thank you very much. I think we have had an exhilarating discussion. It has been quite... I, I, do we have more time or are we done? We, we have... We're done? We're actually running behind the schedule. No, because I, I came a bit late. So I owe them some... Yeah, I thought the idea was you would go across and... Okay. So he's, he's going to be here for some time. And he's going to be exchanging presentries. So I think we should call this to an end. Thank you very much. And I... Let him, let him ask one question. Okay. If you take on this move to reunite the Gandhinairu family... I haven't heard the speculation. Yeah, please. Sir, I have a question for you. Okay. Let me call you to the answer. You can take the mic, sir. Sir, please. My question is, at the national level, your target is Muthianda RSS. But if I have correctly understood your local leaders in Orissa, their target is Navin Patnaik. So how do... My, my target, my target is in the national level to give voice to the people of India. And my target in Orissa is to give the voice of Orissa, the people of Orissa voice. My target is to take Orissa out of this one-man bureaucratic regime and hand it to the people of Orissa. I want to make one more point. There is a connection between Narendra Modi and Mr. Patnaik. Mr. Narendra Modi has leverage over Mr. Narendra... over Mr. Navin Patnaik. You know why? Because of corruption cases. Mr. Navin Patnaik tacitly supports Mr. Narendra Modi throughout whether it is GST, whether it is North Bandi, whether it is in parliament in different bills. So we are fighting them both. We are fighting them in... We are fighting Narendra Modi in Delhi, and we are fighting a version of Mr. Narendra Modi in Orissa. I must say one thing, though. With respect to Mr. Navin Patnaik, he is autocratic. He centralizes power. But he is not as hate-filled as Mr. Narendra Modi is. I think Raulji is going to be here. He is going to be meeting all of you in person. No, we will have to call it to a name. Thank you. We will take it up, please. We cannot end this. This has to come to a name. Do you want to insist? Be very brief. My question is... Raulji, I am working with Dr. Shubharaoji, the great Gandhian of this country, Gandhib's Foundation. My question is, when you need a change, that's right research, right advocacy, right activity, and right activism. As you told that Congress has a dynamic strategy, so what kind of strategy Navinji applied for which is coming to power for since last 20 years? And what you are lacking exactly in this state for which Congress has been losing since last 20 years? I think once are related things. In the time when Gandhiji came to Odisha, he said that he wanted to stay in Odisha for the rest of his life. So in today's day, what is the national agenda of your party to see this state as a deblocked state? And after 18 years, Odisha will be 800. What kind of vision are you looking for? I think the Congress party over the last couple of years, which is something that has changed now, the Congress party was not working as a team. And this was a serious problem for us earlier. But I'm quite happy since the new president has come and since the new AICC team has taken over, that the Odisha Congress is now beginning to work as a team and unitedly. So I think that is making a big difference. We do have different voices, but certain amount of discipline is also required and I think the levels of indiscipline in the Congress earlier were too high, that is what we have changed. So I think that is a positive thing and it is going to give us results. From a standpoint of Odisha, I think the huge question is you have massive resources and the allocation of those resources for Odisha's benefit. Number one, number two, how do you involve large parts of the Odisha population who today do not have a future in Odisha? And I'm talking about in large measure the Dalits and the Tribals, how do you give them a space in the conversation and how do you make them a part of the discussion going forward so that they can also benefit from growth and success of Odisha? That would be the broad thing. I think should I just make a couple of closing remarks? First of all, I want to apologize to you. I came here a little late, so I'd like to apologize that you had to wait for me. Number two, it's been a real pleasure for me talking to you. You asked me whether I would come back. Absolutely, certainly I will come back. I would like to have more conversations like this with you. Unfortunately, in a meeting like this, a lot of people feel that they couldn't ask a question they wanted to ask. That feeling is always there. There are, you know, three, four hundred people here and we can only, you know, have 10, 15, 20 questions. So I'd like to apologize to those people who have a question they'd like to ask but have not been able to do so. I'd happily, you know, if you want to collect them, I can happily send you answers back if that is something that would be interesting. But I want to have a conversation, ongoing conversation with you. I don't want this to just be me coming here, having lunch at with you and going home. You are all valuable people and I want you to know that my doors in Delhi are open for you. If you want to come and meet me, if you want to have a longer conversation with me, there is a cauchel here from my office. He'll give you my contact details. You feel free to come and tell me about how I should think about Orissa. I don't want to cut this conversation. I want this to be an ongoing thing and I want you to have a feeling that you can come to me and say, listen, you know, we are not happy with this or we are very happy with this and we'd like you to do this. Once again, I'd like to thank all of you for coming here. I'd also like to thank all the people who are watching this on television. Thank you for your time. All the best. Jai Hind. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rahul Ji. And I think we'll just... No, it's fine. We'll just wrap it up. I think all of you agree that we have had a really exhilarating discussion. Thank you very much.