Udaipur (Rajasthan): It was time for the grand old party to undergo change, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said on Friday even as she urged the leaders to repay their debt to the party. “The people expect the party to be flexible to change. The time for change is now and it will be done. The organisation needs to change in order to be alive and grow. We need to display a spirit of sacrifice and courage,” Sonia Gandhi said in her opening address at the start of the three-day Chintan Shivir.
For that, Sonia said, a collective effort was needed. “We should take a pledge to restore the position of the party in the country,” she said, urging the leaders to stay united and speak in one voice. Noting she was aware of the “recent poll losses and the struggle required to win” in the future, Sonia said “the party was in the midst of unprecedented circumstances, which needed unprecedented responses.”
She reminded the leaders that it was payback time. “It is time for us to repay our debt to the party. We have to place personal ambitions below the party’s interests,” said Sonia. Listing the various challenges being faced by the country, for which she blamed the Modi government, the Congress chief pressed for reforms saying the organisation “needed to change its strategy and the way it conducts routine affairs.”
She also urged the leaders to curb dissent in public. “During the shivir discussions you can express yourself freely but ensure that the message of unity that goes out is in one voice,” said Sonia. The Congress chief slammed the Centre’s policies saying it was hitting the people. “The country is facing numerous challenges due to the policies of the government,” Sonia said, adding that “it is clear that PM Modi and his colleagues want to keep the country in a constant state of polarisation and in fear.”
The Congress chief accused the Centre of victimising the minorities while noting that they were “equal citizens and an integral part of society.” She criticised the alleged use of central agencies and jailing of political rivals of the BJP on flimsy grounds and accused the establishment of trying to change history.
Making a particular reference to first prime minister late Jawaharlal Nehru, Sonia said that the “leader was being targeted by the establishment which glorifies the killers of Mahatma Gandhi and commits atrocities on the weaker sections of society.” “The majority of the Indians want to live in peace while the BJP wants the people to be in a constant state of frenzy and provoke them,” she said.
The Congress chief further noted that high economic growth was needed to create employment and push welfare schemes and said that the demonetisation in 2016 had led to a sliding economy and crippled the small-scale industries. The farmers, she said, had protested against the three controversial laws and forced the government to repeal them. “We backed the farmers over the issue,” she said, adding that “high prices of essential food items and fuel had hit the common man hard.”
