New Delhi: An upbeat Congress has advocated participatory leadership with more women members, pronounced its resistance to a BJP/RSS backed Prime Minister and criticised the BJP for messing up ties with China, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
At a media interaction, sources in the Congress said, “ What Mr Narendra Modi has done to our relationship with Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives., China and how he has allowed anti-national forces to get space in Jammu and Kashmir. It is disastrous. He went to China and submitted to them. He did not ask them what happened in Doklam. They got the message that when you want Mr Modi to buckle, this is what you have to do.”
At the same time, the Congress voiced the confidence that “ a U.P- Bihar alliance will ensure that Modi cannot be Prime Minister.”
Sources said that what is visible now is “ either an Opposition government or a BJP government without Narendra Modi. The basic architecture of the UP-Bihar alliance is already in play. The Congress party has to bring the entire Opposition together. Let us see how the dais falls. We want to leave as little space possible for the RSS. You are going to see the decimation of the BJP in the next election. Congress is the only answer in the polarised atmosphere in this country.”
The Congress described the BJP and RSS as a male organisation with complete indifference to violence. Sources said, “The Congress has a lot of males but they are sensitive to women. It is absolutely necessary for Congress party future to have more and more women. The RSS idea is that everybody has to bow to a male. Mahatma Gandhi’s idea is that if you want to build a nation, you have to have a convergence of female and male attributes.”
Replying to a question, sources said that the Congress President believes that women are more capable than women and “is all for Priyanka Gandhi not playing an invisible role in the party. He believes that women’s Reservation bill would be a tactical win but he is keen to give equal rights to women and make them feel protected and comfortable in political space. He wants to open up the Congress party to new and younger people from all communities.”
At a lengthy interaction with women journalists, Congress sources said, “ The Prime Minister’s personal views, his utterances has a huge impact on what goes on in this country. So, if the Prime Minister keeps quiet when there is a gang rape in Haryana, the programmes do not matter. Or if the Prime Minister does not actually open his mouth when a tribal or a minorities person is butchered, that has a devastating effect. The atmosphere of fear and supremacy you have created- do you think, it is not going into homes. Mr Modi listens to nobody. The world is moving and India is changing. India needs a completely new set of ideas. The next government will have to take strong decisions on employment, on where we will be positioned internationally, what our relationship with China, US, Russia etc will be, how we are going to look after our farmers, what are we going to do with our education system and what we are going to do to provide low-cost health care to millions of people. Jobs have to become a primary idea. We need to clearly position ourselves on the world stage.”
Sources said that “ If the Congress comes to government in 2019 which seems more and more likely, one of our central schemes is how to aggressively develop jobs in India. It is not going to be easy but we have to have an answer.”