Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday urged party workers to embrace the team spirit created by the late Steve Jobs to revive Apple’s fortunes if they were to regain the lost ground in Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing a Chintin Shivir in Mathura, a meeting to discuss ways to revive the party after the 2014 poll debacle, Mr. Gandhi said the Congress had an inclusive philosophy that set it part from organisations like the RSS.
“The party must work like Steve Jobs’ Apple and be open to all opinions and not just some leaders. We (Congress) allow people to have different ideologies, unlike the RSS,” he said.
“The Congress party is not like the RSS which guides the government. Every member’s voice is heard here, unlike what happens under (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat,” he said.
Mr. Gandhi’s talk of accommodating differences of opinion can also be understood as a way to address concerns about his own leadership that have been raised by senior members of the party. Most recently, he was criticised over the weekend by Captain Amarinder Singh, the former Chief Minister of Punjab.
Mr. Gandhi said that he used to see the Congress party’s cadre in Uttar Pradesh as his sena (army) but now saw them instead as a family who would work for each other. “Earlier, I used to see you all like an army, but now I see you as my family members and we have to work together, take care of each other as family members,” he said.
The Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh since 1989 and the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party have largely dominated the State’s politics. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the party secured only two out of the 80 seats.
Mr. Gandhi, who arrived at the meeting after visiting the Banke Bihari temple in Mathura, also continued his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “unkept” promises. He said that the Prime Minister was fast scripting his own downfall.
Addressing a meeting of Congress workers, Mr. Gandhi stressed that they should be united in order to occupy the space that would be created by Mr. Modi’s exit.
“Modi is damaging himself much more than we can together inflict on him. We have to make our place. Modiji is bound to go down but when he goes, we have to fill that space,” he said.
