HYDERABAD: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has advised leaders of his party to heed the "voice of Bharat Mata" without getting distracted by "irrelevant" noise and ending up "walking into traps set by the BJP".
Holding up his Bharat Jodo Yatra as an example of having an ear to the ground, Rahul said during a CWC session in Hyderabad late Saturday that the march was his medium of connecting with ordinary citizens - mainly the poor, farmers and unemployed youth and hearing their collective voice as being reflective of Bharat Mata.
The Wayanad MP urged the Congress rank and file to focus on translating ideas gleaned from these conversations into concrete policies in states where the Congress is in government, and incorporate these into the party's election guarantees.
AICC general secretary Pawan Khera highlighted on Sunday how the approach suggested by Rahul the previous evening had already proved successful in Karnataka, and was likely to yield results in Telangana as well. "We will form the government by converting Bharat Mata's voice into guarantees in our election manifesto," Khera said.
At Saturday's evening session, Rahul had recalled asking AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge during a conversation they were having why he joined the Congress in the late 1960s when alternative options existed.
"This was during a period when many Congress leaders had distanced themselves from Indira Gandhi. Kharge explained that as a young person back then, he realised only the Congress was dedicated to addressing the concerns of the marginalised sections of society," he said, quoting the current Congress chief.
Khera said Kharge's choice was validated by the Congress following the same path. "Rahul emphasised in his speech that the Congress is not an organisation-based party, but a movement that also functions as an organisation, akin to the role it played during India's struggle for Independence...We emerged from the CWC meeting with a profound sense of clarity."