Dismissing calls for leadership change in the Congress in the wake of the results of the recently-held Assembly elections in five States, former Minister and Congress leader H.C. Mahadevappa has emphasised the need for the party to come up with strategies to counter the political game plan employed by the BJP to gain power.
In a statement, Mr Mahadevappa said the party leaders should introspect over the party’s functioning and devise a course of action to protect the people from “communal forces”.
He said the BJP, which is the ruling party at the Centre and in a few States, had become a “puppet in the hands of corporates, RSS and Sangh Parivar” instead of working for the betterment of the people. The party, which is focussed only on elections, “misuses” Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate, social media and news media for its benefit, he said while accusing the BJP of “dragging the students into their propaganda via WhatsApp University for creating communal hatred and religious division”.
When the BJP was employing such questionable methods to assume power, “what we (Congress) should be doing is the question we should ask ourselves”, he said.
Dismissing the calls for change of leadership in the Congress as a “ridiculous observation”, Mr. Mahadevappa said the Congress party not only holds the “highest record” in extending social justice to all sections of the society, but has also proved itself during critical situations including the country’s freedom struggle period.
He said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, despite seeing her husband’s assassination, agreed to lead the party after a request was made by the party leaders. She not only led the party to power for consecutive terms, but also sacrificed the post of Prime Minister and instead appointed a renowned economist, Manmohan Singh, to the top post to achieve economic progress of the country.
Mr. Mahadevappa also said sought to recall that the party had performed well during the elections in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Jharkand under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.
“Our fight should be against the worst strategies of BJP to gain power instead of blaming our own leadership”, he said before making an appeal to the partymen to work closely with the people. “If we don’t become the voice of the people, we may not convince them too. They will not believe in us. Let us work on such methods unitedly instead of playing a blame game”, he said before adding that failure or success in an election is only temporary.
