I understand that many young men and women are coming forward to join Youth Congress. I am not surprised. It is only natural. The vast majority of our youth is sober and idealistic. It looks forward to an era of disciplined, planned, constructive activity.

One can see the professionals and intellectuals talking to their rural brethren with an amused and condescending smile. They forget that but for the toiling rural masses, all their professional training and erudition would collapse like a castle of cards.

I advocate family planning, but I have never stood for forcible sterilisation.

For the last 20 years, political parties have had a one-way relationship with youth - of exploiting them for political gains and denying them their dues.