The Congress party’s connection with the people has broken and it needs to be re-established by standing with the people instead of focussing on internal matters, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Sunday.
Addressing the concluding session of the three-day Nav Sankalp chintan shivir, Mr. Gandhi asserted that only the Congress could take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in an ideological fight and not any regional party even though regional players had their space.
However, he said the Congress needed to transform its style of communication but not its ideology.
The former Congress chief lauded the party's decisions to give more representation to the youth and empower them but added that “there should be a healthy mix of youngsters and seniors”.
“The Congress' connection with the people has been broken, we will have to accept that, we will have to re-establish that connection. The people know that only the Congress can take the country forward. This is our responsibility," Mr. Gandhi said.
“It is a complaint. Our entire discussion, all talks are about our internal matters...who is getting which post. Our focus is internal. In today's time this internal focus will not work, our focus should be external," he added
‘No shortcuts’
Mr. Gandhi asserted that there were “no shortcuts” to re-establishing the connect with the people except to fight for and stand with the people.
As part of efforts to reconnect with the people, the Congress announced the Bharat Jodo [Unite India] campaign on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2.
"This is the only way for us and there are no shortcuts to this. Anyone who thinks that it can be done through shortcuts it is not possible as it can only be achieved through sweat and hard work,” Mr. Gandhi said.
Praising the idea of “one person, one ticket” rule, he said, “I know [AICC general secretary in charge of organisation K.C.] Venugopal has made a caveat to that, but I do think that it is very important that we limit the number of family members that are involved in our organisation. Let them work, let them develop and then let them join the organisation. We must not have a situation where 5 or 6 or 7 members of a family are in the organisation”.
Communication reforms
The Congress leader also called for a massive reform of the party's communication strategy to reach out to the youth in a better way.
“The 21st century is about communication. And that is one area where our opponents outdo us... They have much more money and are better in communication. So, we must think about communication...completely reform our systems and communicate with the people of India, with the youngsters in a new way,” he said.
Mr. Gandhi said his fight was with the ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which, he alleged, was dangerous for the country.
“The hatred that they spread, the violence that they spread, I fight that. This is the fight of my life. I am not willing to believe that in our beloved country such hatred and anger can spread,” he said.
The former Congress chief said the kind of frank and open conversations that his party colleagues had over the past three days would never be allowed by the BJP-RSS as they believe in muzzling and pressuring institutions.
“...I say this with full responsibility, the only alternative to a conversation between the people of India is violence between the people of India. You can either choose to have a conversation between the people of India or then you can choose to have violence between the people of India,” Mr. Gandhi said.
“And this conversation that takes place between the people of India, between the States of India., the instruments of this conversation, the mechanism of this conversation are the institutions that the Congress party, that your great leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, [Sardar] Patel, [Maulana Abul Kalam] Azad Ji, Ambedkar Ji have helped us create,” he added.
