All India Congress Committee (AICC) vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said his party would go all out to fight the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s moves to scuttle welfare programmes initiated by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
Addressing a meeting of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) executive, Mr. Gandhi expressed serious concern at the concentration of power in one person, Narendra Modi, who alone is allowed to speak.
“All senior leaders have no role and only Narendra Modi matters. In a Congress Cabinet all ministers sit around a table, but in the Modi Cabinet, minsters sit together and the Prime Minster sits separately. You have a Modi government and not a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Delhi that has become an instrument of a caucus,” he said.
Taking off from where he signed off on Monday at the concluding session of KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran’s Janapaksha Yatra, Mr. Gandhi said the BJP did not want the empowerment of the common man. It was silently undoing welfare programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which has gone on to empower the common man. The anti-democratic thinking of the BJP can be seen from the fact that senior leaders cannot open their mouths.
With regard to Kerala, he appreciated the confidence exuded by the ruling coalition and Congress leaders about the UDF’s prospects of returning to power in the next Assembly elections. Lot of hard work needs to be done to achieve this objective. The Congress party’s main opposition in Kerala, the CPI(M), is in trouble with its own internal problems. The party leaders have to remember these aspects while indulging in factionalism. “There could be differences in the perspectives of leaders internally, but the party should come first,” he said.
He asked the KPCC leadership to ensure proper accommodation to what he called ‘middle-aged youths’ who had graduated from Youth Congress politics, but had not got suitable accommodation in the party. These segments should be accommodated at least in District Congress Committees, he said and added that apart from the youth, women and representatives of weaker sections should have a stake in the organisation.
He was happy to note that the Congress party in Kerala was able to take up several issues that affected the common man and that the government and the party were doing a commendable job. If there are differences, these will be resolved, he said.
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