Ruling Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi admitted yesterday the party stumbled badly in recent state polls but vowed to stage a comeback.

A stunning performance by an upstart anti-corruption party helped topple Congress in elections to New Delhi’s state assembly earlier this month, only months before the country goes to the polls in general elections.

Congress, in power at national level for a decade, also lost in three other state assembly contests in a devastating blow ahead of the May election.

“We didn’t really hit a six in the last election,” Gandhi, using a cricket expression, told top business leaders at a conference.

“We didn’t do as well as we expected, but we will renew ourselves and will fight strong and confidently,” Gandhi said at the annual general meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry .

In his first major speech since the party’s polling rout, Gandhi said endemic corruption was “bleeding the people” while adding the country urgently needed to get back on a high-growth trajectory.

“Poverty cannot be fought without growth — there is no confusion in my mind. There is a business engine and the people have to empower the business engine,” he said.

He also defended the large amounts of money being spent on various welfare programmes and said it was necessary for social growth.

“There is a view that our investments in food security, employment guarantee and rural development are a drag on economic growth. I don’t believe there is a trade-off between investments in the social sector and economic growth,” Gandhi said.

“It is today’s investments in people that create tomorrow’s markets. It is today’s markets that allow us to invest in our people’s future,” he said, alluding to the ideological debate between the growth-first school and the social welfare-first school.

“I would like to state clearly that poverty cannot be fought without growth. Maintaining robust growth has enabled the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to invest in people. In 10 years almost a third of India’s poor have risen above the poverty line.”

It was a more self-assured Gandhi who faced business leaders yesterday, a far cry from the waffling and rambling address at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conclave in April.

He also came in clean-shaven, with a fresh haircut, and seemed to have done his homework for this important appearance where industry leaders wanted to know the ruling party’s views and vision ahead of next year’s general election.

Stating that “arbitrary power” was the main problem for India, he said a “middle path” can address a host of issues such as environment-industry balance, while calling for strong labour laws and regulation to sustain growth.

Speaking his mind on two major issues that have come to haunt Indian industry - law for land acquisition and environment clearance - Gandhi told members of the leading industry chamber that both can be addressed while promoting sustainable development.

Indian media have reported Gandhi, 43, could be named the party’s prime ministerial candidate during a Congress meeting in mid-January.

The move would pit Gandhi against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has been named the prime ministerial candidate for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.

Modi has become a hero of middle-class India, hailed as a business-friendly moderniser who could revive a sharply slowing economy.

But his ability to erase memories of deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002 after he became Gujarat chief minister remains an issue for many.

There are also doubts about Gandhi’s ability and desire for the job of prime minister.

Opinion surveys point to a fractured election outcome in which smaller regional parties with differing agendas and a reliance on Muslims and other religious minorities for support could end up with an upper hand.

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