Bhopal: Congress party general secretary Rahul Gandhi interacted with students of Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), one of the country's leading engineering colleges, here on Monday and urged the students to rise to the task of leading India to greater heights.

Gandhi criticized political institutions for nominating candidates rather than democratically electing them within the party. Gandhi said: "It is ironic that this is prevalent in such a great democracy as that of India." He also pointed out that politics today was a closed caucus.

Accompanied by state Congress president Suresh Pachouri, Mandsaur MP Meenakshi Natarajan and AICC general secretary B.K. Hariprasad, Rahul Gandhi addressed the students of MANIT who were quite upbeat in discussing various national issues with them.

The students posed tough questions to the young leader, who in turn did not disappoint them with politically correct answers.

The questions were mainly related to brain drain, reservations, problems with Indians in Australia.

On being asked how technocrats can help the nation on a scale that politicians do, he cited the example of Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and head of Infosys, India's largest IT services company. The Congress leader said not only was Nilekani one of the nation's greatest technocrats but was also associated with the Unique Indentity Authority (UID) project, which is going to be a landmark in India.

On the issue of reservation in educational institutions, Gandhi said, "The paucity of institutions in the nation and not reservation was the main issue."

Gandhi agreed with the students' standpoint that there were some corrupt politicians, musclemen and people with vested interests in politics. The Congress MP who is on a two-day tour of Madhya Pradesh noted that reforms were needed to improve the present political system. IANS