Political Heir Says Too Few in India Hold Political Sway

NEW DELHI â€" Rahul Gandhi is a member of a family that has led India for most of the nation’s 65-year history, but in one of the most important speeches of his life on Sunday he was deeply critical of the Indian government.

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“No matter what state you look at, no matter which political party you look at, why do a handful of people control the entire political space” Mr. Gandhi asked. “Power is grossly centralized in our country.”

Indeed, power in India has mostly been centralized in Mr. Gandhi’s family, and his speech on Sunday was his first major step in trying to ensure that this centralization continues well past 2014, when national elections are scheduled. Mr. Gandhi is the son, grandson and great-grandson of previous Indian prime ministers. He and his mother, Sonia Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress Party, gave speeches on Sunday on the last day of a party meeting in Jaipur.

“And it does not matter how much wisdom you have, you mean nothing,” Mr. Gandhi said. “This is the tragedy of India. Why is our youth angry Why are they out on the street They are angry because they are alienated. They are excluded from the political class.” Mr. Gandhi said the entire system must be transformed, although he said that the Congress Party had already begun that process.

He was formally elevated Saturday to vice president in the governing Congress Party, making him second only to his mother in the party’s hierarchy. His promotion has been years in the making, and many in the party have been quietly pressing him to take a more active role in governing for years. He has never held a cabinet-level position.

In her own remarks, Mrs. Gandhi turned to a recent crime that prompted widespread outrage. “The barbaric gang-rape of a young woman in Delhi has shaken the country, she said. “She embodied the spirit of an aspirational India. We will ensure her death will not go in vain.”

She promised to press for legislation to ensure that 30 percent of the positions in Parliament and the state legislative assemblies would be held by women. India has a vast system of quotas for the historically disadvantaged, and expanding those set-asides has for years been deeply popular with those who benefit from them â€" which increasingly is much of the population.

Mrs. Gandhi also said that the Congress Party needed to do a better job of explaining its successes, and she lashed out at corruption as “a deep-rooted malice.”

“As a party we must lead the struggle to combat its effect,” she said.

The Gandhi family has long been the glue that held the Congress Party together even as regional rivals have become more powerful. Sonia Gandhi has mostly carried the Gandhi mantel since her husband, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated. But she is a native of Italy, and when her party won the 2004 elections, she chose a technocrat, Manmohan Singh, to be the government’s prime minister.

But Mr. Singh is 80. Few expect him to continue as prime minister past next year, and many in the party have looked to Mr. Gandhi to take up his role as the leader of his family and his party.

Whether Mr. Gandhi will thrive in this role is a source of constant speculation. He entered politics in 2004 by taking over a seat in Parliament vacated for him by his mother, who moved to a neighboring constituency. He campaigned aggressively in recent state elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but his party was soundly defeated in both places. Perhaps wary of another poor performance, he and his mother campaigned sparingly in December during state elections in Gujarat, where the Congress Party was again defeated.

It is still unclear whether Mr. Gandhi will be tapped as the party’s pick for prime minister next year. Equally uncertain is who will be the candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition. Narendra Modi is now that party’s most accomplished leader, but he is deeply unpopular with Muslims because he was in charge in Gujarat when deadly riots erupted there in 2002, leaving nearly 1,000 people dead, many of them Muslims.

Mr. Gandhi has led party youth organizations, and Congress Party leaders hope he will be able to appeal to India’s vast youth population. At 42, he is much younger than most of India’s leaders, whose average age is 65.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 21, 2013, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Political Heir Says Too Few In India Hold Political Sway .