Will take on the menace called corruption: Rahul

Expressing deep concern over rising corruption in the country, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Monday emphasised upon the need for  strict action against the menace.

Arriving in Amethi on a three-day tour of his parliamentary constituency, he was speaking at a special function to mark the inauguration of the National Footwear Design and Development Institute at Fursatganj.

"Corruption is a serious issue and we have already initiated certain tough measures to deal with it," he said in reply to a pointed query by a scribe just as he rose to leave the venue.

Rahul sought to make it loud and clear that he did not believe in taking corruption lightly and that he was personally ready to take the bull by its horns.

Reacting to his stress on the need for development of a 'backward' Uttar Pradesh, when a scribe sought his comment on his primary focus only on Amethi and Rae Bareli (his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's constituency),

Rahul shot back, "Well, even Amethi and Rae Bareli still require much more development."

He blamed the state government for not focusing its attention on the need for development of the entire state.

"Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are extremely important for the entire nation and unless these two states were developed, all the talk about the nation building would be meaningless," remarked the Gandhi scion.

"Together with development, what UP and Bihar need desperately is large scale improvement in the law and order, without which the overall picture would not change," he sought to point out.

Earlier, while speaking at the function, he exhorted the youth to realise that they were the "nation builders of tomorrow" and the future of the nation, therefore, depended on them.

Significantly, this was one of the rare occasions during his Rae Bareli or Amethi visits that he interacted with the media, which is usually kept at an arm's length.