From left in front, Congress party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party president Sonia Gandhi wave to party supporters during a public rally, in New Delhi, Sunday. — AP
NEW DELHI — India's embattled Congress party, led by Sonia Gandhi, sought to drum up support for the contentious opening up of the country's vast retail sector to big foreign chains at a mass rally on Sunday, saying supermarkets would help farmers and consumers battling high inflation. The left leaning Gandhi's new support for reforms is seen as a shift in strategy by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, which is trying to win over a population angry at corruption scandals as it heads into a string of elections including a northern state assembly Sunday. “FDI in retail will not only benefit farmers but also unemployed youth and the common man,” the Italian-born head of the ruling Congress party told a capacity crowd of mainly rural supporters in New Delhi's Ramlila Maidan ground, which holds about 50,000 people. More stood outside. A lack of cold storage and quality granaries means up to a third of India's food production goes to waste. The government says supermarket chains such as Walmart Inc will build the infrastructure required to unblock supply bottlenecks and bring down prices. Rahul Gandhi, scion of India's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, addressed tens of thousands of supporters at the rally raising his profile before a possible bid to become prime minister. Gandhi, 42, vowed to fight to modernize the country through reforms that he said would help the poor and provide jobs for the rapidly growing population. “We need economic reforms because only when businesses operate well will there be progress, and then we can run programs to benefit the poor,” he told the major party gathering. Critics including the leading opposition Bharatiya Janata Party say foreign supermarkets will destroy millions of jobs in small shops and will lead to lower prices for farmers in the long term. In her fiery speech, Sonia Gandhi also addressed the corruption charges her party and its allies have faced over the last two years. “I admit, corruption is a cancer, it is a disease,” she said. “We will continue to fight this disease.” Several government ministers are facing corruption charges stemming from scandals over the hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the sale of cellphone spectrum and allocation of coal fields that auditors said lost the country of billions of dollars. More recently, anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal has alleged that Gandhi's businessman son-in-law Robert Vadra made millions of rupees off of shady real estate deals and a senior minister embezzled millions of rupees meant for a charity that helps the disabled. None of Kejriwal's allegations have led to charges or been independently verified, but they have added to the government's graft woes. Sonia last week promoted the new retail policy with apple farmers in Himachal Pradesh before Sunday's election in the mountainous state. In October, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told an Indian newspaper that foreign supermarket investment would not benefit India and could cost manufacturing jobs if the retailers sourced from China. The crowd, many wearing pink turbans and carrying placards in favor of foreign investment, were mainly men and women from the north Indian farming states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. “We support the government's decision on FDI. The opposition is only confusing the people,” said Laxmi Devi, from the poor state of Bihar. The Gandhis favor widespread welfare schemes for India's poor and had previously offered lukewarm backing to policies Singh says are essential to generate the growth that funds welfare. — Agencies
