‘Don’t fall prey to BJP’s diversionary tactics’
NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi asked leaders of minority communities on Monday to keep the focus on the party’s “ideology” and not fall into the “trap” of BJP government’s “diversionary tactics”.
Rahul said the BJP used these tactics to “distract public attention from its failures”.
Gandhi interacted with 130 leaders of minority communities from across the country and told them to take the Congress ideology and the ‘idea of India’ to every household. “If we don’t fight for a secular India, the future generations will never forgive us,” a Congress leader quoted Gandhi as having said.
The Congress V-P also told the gathering that communal forces could not succeed during former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s time as her focus was entirely on the upliftment of poor people.
Gandhi also discussed the ways to strengthen the organisation and expand the party’s outreach at all levels.
The party’s minority department chairman, Khurshid Ahmed Saiyed, came under fire during the meet for his “failure” to restructure the sub-units in different parts of the country.
Many leaders complained that vacancies in minority departments in their respective states had not been filled for years now, rendering these key sub-units dysfunctional.
During the meeting, it was also suggested that the Congress should follow neither ‘soft-Hindutva’ nor engage in Muslim appeasement but stick to its secular and development agenda.
In the past, senior Congress leaders such as AK Antony had flagged concerns of the majority community, which “felt alienated” due to the party’s perceived minority appeasement policy. They claimed minority appeasement proved counter-productive for the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as the BJP was successful in “exploiting the issue to its benefit” in consecutive electoral battles.