New Delhi: Pushing for agitational politics against the ongoing economic slowdown, Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi urged party leaders to hit the streets and not just use Twitter.
“It is not enough to be active and aggressive on social media even though that too is needed and we need to do that better. Far more important is to go to the people directly,” said a Congress statement, quoting Gandhi.
“She said that Congress needs to talk about issues that bother the common man,” a source in the party told ThePrint. “Just tweeting about things won’t do.”
Gandhi was speaking at a meeting of the party’s general secretaries, Congress Legislative Party leaders, state Congress chiefs and chief ministers held at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi Thursday.
Barring Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, all other CMs were present. She urged the chief ministers to make their states models of “sensitive and responsive governance, accountable and transparent administration” or the party would lose the faith of the people. Gandhi is likely to meet the chief ministers again Friday.
“We are meeting at a time when there is a prolonged economic slump, when job losses are mounting by the day, when the confidence of the investors is getting shakier by the day, when the government appears more and more clueless and insensitive by the day,” the statement said.
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‘Fight on the streets, fight in villages, towns and cities’
Hitting out at the BJP-led government’s “vendetta politics”, Gandhi said: “Those who speak out against the ruling establishment are being threatened and intimidated. Each and every institution is being diabolically subverted. The voices of dissent are being silenced.”
Gandhi asked the Congress leaders to take their fight to the streets as elections in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana inch closer.
The party has been battling defections and factionalism since its humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in May.
Acknowledging that the situation is “challenging”, Gandhi said that if the leaders keep party interests above everything else, the Congress can regain its lost ground.
“We must stand up fearlessly to fight on the streets, fight in villages, towns and cities. We must have a concrete agitational agenda on issues of pressing concern to the people — whether they be economic or social,” she said.
The party is planning to hold a Pradesh Congress Committee delegates convention between 25-30 September to brief the state Congress chiefs about the slowdown. The party will then organise a massive agitation from 15-25 October, targeting the Narendra Modi government.
“This is the time when it will become clear as to who are those steadfastly devoted to the Congress as an ideology (as a vehicle) for strengthening the nation and those who look to the Congress only as an opportunity for self-advancement,” said Gandhi.
“Some of our party colleagues have left us in recent times. All I can say is that they have revealed their opportunistic character,” she added.
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