New Delhi: Latching on to the salary issue of sanitation workers, Rahul Gandhi on Saturday made a strong pro-poor pitch assuring them that he will give his "whole life to fight" for the rights of the under-privileged wherever they are being suppressed.
"I am not talking about sanitation staff alone but wherever the poor people are being suppressed. Wherever people in suit-boot or whether they are from Aam Aadmi (Party) are not doing their work, I will stand by them," Rahul said after meeting the sanitation workers of East Delhi MCD office.
The workers met Rahul at his residence to thank him a day after he took on the Centre and Delhi government over their strike.
The Congress Vice President, who had joined the MCD workers on strike on Friday at East Delhi MCD office and expressed solidarity with them, said that while he spent only 15 minutes with them then, he is ready to dedicate his whole life to fight for their cause.
"I stood with them and will stand with them in future also. I am ready to stand with them everywhere. I had told them that I will join them whenever they need me.
"Yesterday, I was with them for 15 minutes but I am willing to give hours, days, months, years and my whole life for them," Rahul said as the sanitation workers cheered him.
Rahul, who has often made a pronounced pitch for Left-of- the-Centre politics, said that he believes that the city should progress by taking everybody along, be it poor or rich.
"They should all move together. This is my thinking and I will take it forward," he said.
Asked if he believed that AAP-run Delhi government and BJP-run MCD were forced to pay sanitation staff their dues due to his intervention, Rahul evaded a direct reply saying he does not know whether it happened due to him or somebody else.
Amid mounting public anger over heaps of garbage in the city not being cleared, Rahul had on Friday launched a scathing attack on the Centre and Delhi government for "failing to deliver" on their "tall promises" and accused them of passing the buck on each other.
Sitting on the ground surrounded by protesting sanitation workers in east Delhi, Rahul had invoked their strength as "shakti" saying that is the only way to solve their problems as merely making demands will not get them their dues.
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