Kolkata: Despite a series of electoral setbacks, an optimistic Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda on Friday said that people want the party to return which was evident from their growing interest in its future.
"I am confident about the future of the Congress party. People showing concern about the party is a good sign as it shows that people want the Congress to return," the Lok Sabha MP from Haryana said at an ICC interaction here today.
He said although the party was ousted badly in the last Lok Sabha polls, this was because the party was not able to match upto the people's expectations.
"We have committed some mistakes for which the party had to pay the price," he said, adding, "the economic policies followed by the Congress-led UPA government were far more social sector oriented than of the present and previous NDA dispensations."
"The NDA regime is keen on taking extreme right policies not keeping in mind the interest of the farmers and the poor people, as seen in the drastic slashing in allocation of funds to the social sector in the last budget of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley," he claimed.
While the UPA government tried to create a vast rural market leading to consumer-led growth, the NDA dispensation was backing on corporate-led growth as the budget had cut the corporate tax rate, he said.
On Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's return from 56-days sabbatical, he said "I do not know of anyone who has not taken a break", refusing to comment on the timing of the unexplained leave.
Asked whether he favoured Rahul's elevation to the top post in Congress party, he said that it was a united entity where Sonia Gandhi is the President and Rahul Gandhi the Vice-President.
