The backdrop to Sankalp Diwas, organised by the Mahila Congress at the Talkatora Stadium on Wednesday, to mark the 70th birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, said it all: on the far right a clean shaven Rahul Gandhi, on the left Sonia Gandhi in bold relief, folding her hands in a namaste, but looking over her shoulder, a shadowy but benign presence — a gently smiling Rajiv Gandhi.
Three months after the Congress faced its worst-ever electoral defeat in its 128-year-old history, the party was clearly reaching into the past for inspiration — to Rajiv Gandhi. In the posters that dotted Lutyens’ Delhi and in the eulogies by speakers at the Mahila Congress convention there were frequent references to his contribution to devolution of powers — panchayati raj, empowerment of women and ushering in the IT revolution.
Ms. Gandhi began her speech at the Talkatora Stadium by recalling that Rajiv Gandhi was the leader “of a new generation, a new India, a new century, and a new history of India”, and the fact that his goal had been to harness the energies and talents of young people for nation-building. If he had two major goals, she stressed, they were to bring India into the 21st century and to empower women: a country where half the population is ignored, Rajiv Gandhi would say, she recalled, cannot move forward.
Even as Ms. Gandhi launched a no- holds barred attack on the BJP, saying it had “spun a web of false dreams” to fool people into voting for it, she exhorted party colleagues to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the Congress once again “reaches the peak”.
“The road to recovery may be long and we have to work harder than ever before, but the day is not far when the Congress reaches the peak again,” she said to a standing ovation.
Accusing the Narendra Modi government of copying the UPA government’s welfare schemes and programmes without acknowledging the original, she pointed out that whether it was the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (to improve sanitation and build toilets), or the MGNREGA, legislation to protect and schemes to empower women — it was all done by a Congress-led dispensation. The Gandhis not only made a strong pitch for the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill but also promised women a larger electoral role for them at all levels. Indeed, a majority of 10,000 women delegates attending the Sankalp Diwas were elected members of panchayats and local bodies.
Mr. Gandhi received the loudest applause when he said it was men, rather than women, who needed to change their mindset, with a Kashmiri delegate even intoning, “Inshallah”.: the men who said they worshipped women as goddesses he said were the same men who harassed them on buses, kept them down.
Taking a swipe at the BJP, Mr. Gandhi said the ruling party believed women should be worshipped, and kept at home; the Congress, on the other hand, “believes they should come out of their homes, run businesses. It is a battle not just of organisations, but of ideologies.”
Mahila Congress chief Shobha Oza also made a pointed remark about Rajiv Gandhi’s efforts to usher in a different sort of politics — a clean politics, a veiled reference to the UPA years in which corruption laid the party low.
Significantly, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar — who had worked closely with Rajiv Gandhi — was invited to speak on the occasion, on a day when the only other male speaker was party vice president Rahul Gandhi. In his speech, Mr Aiyar said that if Rajiv Gandhi’s dreams were to be fulfilled, the close to Rs. 5 lakh crores that go to the panchayats must be spent properly.
At Talkatora Stadium, as delegates waited for the day’s convention to begin, giant screens ran a film on Rajiv Gandhi — Indira Gandhi recalling his childhood years; Rajiv Gandhi answering questions during his tenure as Prime Minister – and after – on key issues. There were even glimpses of a typical working day in his life.
In office and out of office, Rajiv Gandhi met ordinary party workers at 9 a.m. every day, the film showed, a practice he adopted from Indira Gandhi — but now long discontinued by his successors.
As the party struggles to refashion a strategy, its leadership could well take a leaf out of Rajiv Gandhi’s book — and start by re-connecting with party workers.
