Rahul spells out idea of India in 2019 pitch
Cong believes in 1.3bn imaginations, BJP in only one Ready to be PM if that’s what the alliance partners want State, central polls are different, Maya will join forces with us
NEWDELHI: Congress president Rahul Gandhi blew the poll bugle on Friday, drawing the battle lines for the 2019 general election, which he said would be a fight between the perceived authoritarianism of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the liberalism he claimed was represented by the 132-year-old Congress. He also attacked the ruling dispensation for undermining social harmony and institutional autonomy.
Gandhi, the keynote speaker on the first day of the twoday 16th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, said the ruling dispensation had “gone to war” with its own people, adding that the country was paying the price for the politics of hatred.
The NDA is trying to refashion the diverse nation of 1.3 billion people in the mould of one singular “imagination”, he said. The Congress, for its part, would initiate a conversation between all sections of the society and in the economic domain, Gandhi said, reaching out to industrialists in an attempt to allay their concerns about his outlook for the economy.
The Congress chief drew a clear distinction between the NDA’S vision of India and that of his own party at the event where he spoke about issues ranging from the economy and foreign policy to similarities and differences between his styles of functioning and that of his mother. “It (NDA government) wants to impose one singular, suffocating memory on our 1.3 billion memories. The Congress vision of India is of 1.3 billion imaginations,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi’s remarks, at the gathering of business leaders, diplomats, political leaders and commentators at the summit, the theme of which is ‘Reimagining The Future’ , come at a time the BJP and the Congress are preparing for assembly elections in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, as well as Telangana in the south, seen as a precursor to next year’s general election. The Congress has been trying to project the BJP as a party that is against the interests of farmers, the minorities and underprivileged lower castes -- a perception that the ruling party has been trying to dispel.
Dealing with the specifics of the proposed ‘grand alliance’ to take on the NDA in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi, 48, who succeeded his mother Sonia Gandhi in December as party president, said that the Opposition had agreed on a two-stage process -- the first was to come together on one platform to defeat the BJP and the second was to choose the leadership after the polls.
When asked if he would be open to being the prime ministerial candidate if his party and allies so insist, Gandhi replied, “If they want me, yes sure I will.”
Referring to the recent decision of Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati not to tie up with the Congress in state elections at the end of 2018, Gandhi said he had indications that this did not foreclose a 2019 alliance.
On Friday, railway minister Piyush Goyal responded to Gandhi’s comment that the Congress had a vision of an India of 1.3 billion imaginations. Goyal likened it to the imagination of the fabled character Sheikh Chilli. “We are working on the imagination of Mahatma who called for Congress to wind up shop,” Goyal said at the HT Leadership Summit. “We have reached out to the imagination of the poor day in and day out”.
The Congress president also spent time in outlining differences between the organisational character of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Congress - and also between Hindutva and Hinduism. He was asked about his visits to Hindu places of worship in poll-bound states. “Hindutva is a political ideology and Hinduism is a philosophy. My visit to temples has nothing to do with Hindutva. I have been going to temples, mosques, churches and gurudwaras but it got publicised only in Gujarat. It irritates the BJP, they don’t like me going to temples,” he said, dismissing suggestions that the Congress had adopted a ‘soft Hindutva’ approach to counter the BJP. “It actually infuriates them because they have a sense of monopoly on everything.”
Attacking the BJP and the RSS, Gandhi said an “ideological war” was taking place in the country. “The people who define the BJP ideology are the RSS. The BJP does not have an understanding of the core ideas that they are fighting for, the RSS has. On the other side, there are multiple visions contesting that and the Congress is the ideological centre,” he said.
“Congress party cannot and should not develop the cadre system that the RSS has. The aim of the RSS is to capture all the institutions, we don’t want that,” he said.
Gandhi was critical of the NDA government over its foreign policy vis-a-vis Pakistan, China and Nepal.
“Pakistan is a special neighbour. It has structural problems. Pakistan is four or five different institutions and it is very difficult to understand who to speak to. Pakistan carries out terrorist activities in India. We have different type of relations with Pakistan but there is a lot of room for conversation with Nepal and Sri Lanka,” he said.