Congress' connection with people 'broken', Rahul Gandhi admits, says regional parties can't defeat BJP

Congress adopted a 'Nav Sankalp' -- a road map for wide-ranging reforms in the party organisation to make it battle-ready for upcoming polls

Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday sounded a no-confidence motion on “ideology-less” regional parties, saying they do not have it in them to fight the BJP-RSS even as he admitted that his party’s connect with the people has been “broken”.

His remarks came at his address during the concluding session of the party’s three-day ‘Chintan Shivir’ here where around 430 leaders brainstormed on the way ahead for the party, as it prepares to take on the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

“The regional parties cannot fight this battle. It is a fight of ideology. Regional parties have their space but they cannot defeat the BJP because they do not have an ideology. They have a different approach. We have a centralised approach,” Rahul said.

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The former Congress president’s lack of confidence on the ability of regional parties came even as the Udaipur Declaration adopted by the conclave said that the party would keep the avenues open for forging alliances with like-minded parties in its fight against the BJP.

Reminding that he predicted the Covid-19 mess in the country, he said the country would be on fire soon as the government has not been engaging people, states and its institutions in a conversation. It is the Congress’ job to ensure that there is no fire, he added.

On the party’s standing, he said, “we have to accept that the Congress’ connection with the people has been broken. Our fight is for ideology. We have to go to the people and sit with them, the connection the party had with people has to be re-established.” The Congress will start a Kanyakumari-Kashmir ‘Bharat Jodo’ (Unite India) yatra from October 2 this year.

He said there is a need to strengthen the party’s relationship with the people and this “cannot happen with short-cuts”. He said all of them should undertake mass contact programmes and spend time with people but not just for one or two days but for months.

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He said there is also a need to transform the nature of Congress – not in terms of thinking or ideology but the way it does its work. He also highlighted the party's weakness on messaging its agenda and said there is a need to overhaul its communication strategy.

At a time there was speculation about rift between the youth brigade led by Rahul and the seniors, he said he was for the idea that a certain number of positions should be earmarked for the younger people. However, he was quick to add that he was not saying no to the seniors. “It should be a healthy mix of young and old,” he said.

Rahul said there were frank discussions at the conclave while asking which party would allow this kind of a discussion where the senior-most leadership is “bluntly told, without holding back, without hesitation, what the Congress party feels. “Certainly, the BJP, and RSS would never allow such a thing,” he said.

He devoted a substantial time of his speech on the BJP-RSS and said there has been a systematic destruction of institutions where members’ mikes are switched off in Parliament and thrown out, media is muzzled and Election Commission is twisted. Touching upon the youth and joblessness, he said the “demographic dividend the country enjoys is turning into a demographic disaster”

The responsibility of the Congress is to stand with the people in this fight on ideology.

“Without batting an eyelid, senior leaders and others should go to the people, sit with them, and understand their problems,” he said.