Sonia Gandhi speak

Congress president Sonia Gandhi signalled that her party would continue to back liberalization while earmarking a prominent role for regulatory institutions and calling on industry not to lose sight of the poor in their pursuit of wealth creation and corporate success. Outlining what is a prime concern for her party, Sonia said, “What concerns us most today is that the economic upheaval could grievously affect the most vulnerable sections of our society.” She pointed out that people far removed from the world of high finance were worst impacted by the financial meltdown sweeping across nations. Her stress on the socially and economically vulnerable could be reflected in some of the measures government is expected to announce as a response to the economic slowdown and could include more allocations to poverty alleviation and employment generation schemes. Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, Sonia said it was small and medium enterprises who create the bulk of jobs and help spread growth across the country. “It is these lakhs of small and medium units who require sustained assistance,” she said. Echoing PM Manmohan Singh’s earlier pronouncements, she called for greater public investment in physical and social infrastructure and to do so in a manner that makes government spending as effective as possible. There could be no deviation from the objectives of accelerating employment generation, expanding education, providing adequate healthcare and supply of clean drinking water, she said even while reassuring her audience that the difficulties posed by the financial crisis were not only surmountable but would throw up new opportunities for the future. While making the point that she did not view the economy as simply a statistic, Sonia said growth had never been about per capita income figures, a slight slip as this is a measure of prosperity or lack of it, saying, “As a free society, we believe in freedom and prosperity. But not at the expense of social justice.” With general elections not too far off, Sonia once again expressed confidence in PM and said government won’t abandon the “prudent and cautious” course charted so far under the “able leadership” of Singh.