Decimated in the Lok Sabha polls and with its current leadership still struggling to pick up the pieces, the Congress has decided to revive first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy in a year-long mass contact programme.
The attempt, sources said, is to link the Congress’s past to its present in public memory as well as pitch Nehruvian ideas against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s model of governance. “Nehru’s ideas and philosophy are what defines the idea of India for the Congress. India that is inclusive, secular and democratic,” a Congress leader said.
The party is desperate to stem the anti-Congress sentiment that saw its numbers in the Lok Sabha polls come down from 206 to 44. The party’s losing streak had continued in the recent Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana.
The mass contact programme will be spearheaded by the Congress party’s frontal organisations, including the Indian Youth Congress, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and the All India Mahila Congress, Congress leader Anand Sharma said.
Nearly 150 officials of the three organisations were part of various organising committees for the international conference on Nehru in the capital on November 17 and 18. “We did not outsource. We have made a statement that we have capable people who are result-oriented,” Mr. Sharma said.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had first summoned the NSUI president last month and asked for the organisation that works in colleges and universities to propagate Nehru’s legacy, sources said. After the success of the conference, more frontal organisations were roped in.
Sources added that Ms. Gandhi hosted a lunch on Thursday for the organising committee which was also attended by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. All three organisations have been asked to submit detailed plans. The Mahila Congress has been entrusted with tapping women and school children.
