Asserting that Indian society and its freedoms now were under “systematic and sustained assault,” former Congress president Sonia Gandhi said the party would not allow the BJP-led NDA to come back to power in the 2019 elections.
In a rare interview at the ongoing India Today Conclave in Mumbai, she said the Congress needed to develop a new style of connecting with the people to take on the BJP and admitted that the UPA government was outmarketed by the BJP in the 2014 election campaign. She argued that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of Acche Din (Good Days) would meet the same fate as the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Shining India moment (when the BJP lost the 2004 elections) and urged the Opposition parties to sink their differences for the sake of the country.
Ms. Gandhi spoke on a wide range of issues: from corruption charges against the UPA to the need for Opposition parties, to a breakdown of relationship between the Opposition and the Modi government, to not knowing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a person.
The sharpest attack against the Modi government, however, came in her keynote address where she argued that there is a “re-imagination happening based on distorted history and a regressive vision is being presented.”
“This is a well sorted-out project long in the making to refashion the very idea of India. It involves rewriting history, falsifying facts, slandering nation-builders and fanning prejudice and bigotry. I would like to ask, if I may, was India really a giant black hole before May 16, 2014? Did India’s march to progress, prosperity and greatness begin only four years ago? Is this claim not an insult to the intelligence of our people?”asked Ms. Gandhi.
She said casual remarks about changing the Constitution were deliberate attempts to subvert the essence of the India it enshrines. “Long-standing principles that have stood the country well are being violated. Parliamentary majority is being interpreted as a licence to stifle debate and bulldoze legislations. Political opponents are being targeted through misuse of investigative agencies.”
Attributing Prime Minister Modi’s success in the 2014 election to anti-incumbency and better communication, she said the corruption campaign against the UPA was highly exaggerated.
“We were outmarketed and we could not really compete in the way the BJP under Mr. Modi ran the campaign…Yes that (corruption) was an issue but it was highly exaggerated. And the question we need to ask ourselves is how come the person who gave the 2G scam report was given a cushy job,”she said.
Talking about why she refused the Prime Minister’s job in 2004, she said she knew her limitations and that Manmohan Singh would be a better Prime Minister than her.
Asked if she knew Prime Minister Modi as a person, she said, “I don’t know him as a person. During (former prime minister) Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time, we were bitter opponents but still we functioned well.”
Indicating that she would be contesting the 2019 polls and play an active role in politics, she made it clear the Congress’ new team under Rahul Gandhi would reflect a blend of old and new leaders.
