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Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 17
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday declared a war on the BJP saying the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had fatigued the nation and the Congress alone could direct the country out of this tiredness.
Addressing the 84th AICC Plenary Session that opened here on Saturday, Gandhi gave three important messages–Congress alone can give India a political alternative to the BJP, the Congress must unite the country which the BJP is seeking to divide and the Congress cannot go forward without a cohesive approach between the old and the new guard.
In his five-minute opening speech in the presence of 2,000 delegates, Gandhi said the BJP was spreading fear in the country and sowing seeds of division between people.
“The work of the Congress is to unite. That is the force of the symbol of our hand. That is your strength,” he said.
Signalling his own style of functining in the future, Gandhi said the party needed both the vivaciousness of the youth and the experience of the veterans. In our tradition changes happen but the past is not forgotten. The youth will show us the way but we cannot move forward without the experience of the veterans.
In his political message, Gandhi made it clear that the Congress was still the only option for India.
“The youth is looking towards Mr Modi and is not finding the promise of jobs. Farmers do not know when they will get a fair price for their produce. The country is tired. The Congress alone can show the country a direction and take everyone along by leaving no one behind. We belong to all,” Gandhi said after earlier unfurling the Tricolour to throw open the Plenary. He was received by his mother and former president Sonia Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and other veterans.
As Gandhi set the tone for discussions at the Plenary, the party’s political resolution was moved by its Lok Sabha leader Mallikarjun Kharge and seconded by MP Rajiv Satav.
The resolution called for a practical approach for cooperation with all like-minded parties and evolving a common workable programme to defeat the BJP and RSS in the 2019 elections.
Expressing appprehensions about EVMs the resolution called for return to the ballot paper besides terming the PM’s idea of one nation one election as constitutionally impractical calling for a national consensus on the same.
Alarmed by recent defections in poll-bound states, the Congress resoluution spoke of adopting legislative mesaures to prevent the practice saying, “The Congress will consider legislative disincentives to put an end to the practice and debar defectors from contesting elections for six years.”
Overall, the resolution took note of the alleged disquiet in the judiciary, accused PM of harbouring the corrupt, slammed the government for a weak internal and external security situation and decided to back the TDP and YSR Congress over a no- confidence motion in the Lok Sabha over denial of special category status to Andhra Pradesh.
The Plenary is being attended by all top Congress leaders and is the first after Rahul Gandhi became party chief on December 16, 2017.
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