NEW DELHI, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- In an apparent reference to the latest series of protests against a horrifying gang rape in the country, India's newly elected Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi Sunday called for a "complete overhaul of the (political) system" in the country.
Rahul Gandhi, who was unanimously elected vice president of India's oldest and biggest political party on Sunday, told a national rally of the Congress in Jaipur, western India, that " young and impatient India" is now demanding "a greater role" in decision making of the country's aging political structure.
In an impassioned speech, Gandhi said the party must respect the youths' demand, but he came short of naming the latest series of unprecedented protests in India after a 23-year-old woman was brutally killed by six thugs on a moving bus in the Indian capital on Dec. 16.
"We don't need better systems, we need a complete transformation in the system, we need 40-50 leaders at the national level and seven to 10 at the state level," said the charismatic 42-year-old Nehru-Gandhi scion while addressing over 1, 200 delegates at the All India Congress Committee session in Jaipur.
Gandhi is expected to be the prime minister's candidate in the coming general election in 2014.
In the past one month after the gang rape took place, many protesters, mostly young people, have expressed their anger and frustration in a dysfunction power system of the country which they think is incapable of bringing social justice to a large part of the Indian society, especially its middle and lower level women, among numerous other serious structural flaws in the system.
In an earlier speech at the party rally in Jaipur, Congress President Sonia Gandhi promised to deliver justice to the victim of the gang rape and push ahead legislations in favor of women's rights and power.
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