Road to Congress’ success goes through Gujarat: Rahul Gandhi

Modasa (Gujarat): Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, today said that the road to Congress’ success goes through Gujarat.

He also said that the entire country knows that only Congress can defeat the RSS and the BJP.

Addressing a District Workers’ Convention here today, Rahul Gandhi said the party needs to engage and involve the new generation and those leaders who are connected with the masses. At the same time, those who are aligned with the BJP need to be sidelined decently, he added.

The senior Congress leader said it was not only a political fight, but also an ideological battle that was going on in the country. He said there were only two ideological parties in the country: Congress and the BJP-RSS. “The entire country knows only the Congress can defeat the BJP,” he remarked, adding: “The road to Congress’ success lies through Gujarat.”

Gandhi said the Congress must return to its original foundation. “Our party started from Gujarat,” he pointed out, while referring to two great leaders of the party — Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, both of whom were from Gujarat. He asserted that Congress’ comeback was not a difficult task in Gujarat and assured that the party will take the mission to its logical conclusion. He said, unlike in the past when local district leaders were not involved in the decision-making process, now they will be involved in all activities, including the selection of the candidates for elections.

Rahul Gandhi said the District Presidents will be empowered with more responsibility and the districts will be run from the district headquarters and not the state capitals, suggesting that no decisions will be imposed from the top.

Striking a chord with the party workers, the Leader of the Opposition admitted that there is a practice of people getting elected with the hard work of the organisation, and the moment they get elected, they forget the organisation. This will not be allowed to happen anymore, he clarified.

Rahul Gandhi disclosed that Gujarat served as a pilot project for strengthening the organisation, because the party wanted to convey the message as to how important the state was for it.

He stressed the need for involving and engaging the new generation with the Congress, and promoting those people who are truly connected with the masses. “We have to bring them forward,” he said, while adding at the same time, some people who are secretly aligned with the BJP have to be identified and decently sidelined and told to get aside.

Senior leaders, including AICC General Secretaries KC Venugopal and Mukul Wasnik, Gujarat PCC President Shaktisinh Gohil, CLP leader Amit Chavda, Shailesh Parmar, Tushar Chaudhary, Madhusudan Mistry, Bharat Solanki, Shiv Dahariya, Lalji Desai, and Kamalendra Singh, were also present on the occasion.