Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has issued a video of his address at the meeting of the INDIA bloc on June 8 while addressing the opposition parties to launch stronger campaign against the BJP than a mere contest for the next elections.
Gandhi said that opposition parties should stop playing election politics and adopt, as he put it, a ‘spirit of resistance’ which is, according to him, ‘a continuous one.’ He said there was a need of ‘solidarity’ among the allies and that the Congress was strong in its determination to bear political setbacks and criticisms as long as it was serving the cause of the opposition alliance.
In response to the recent political shift, Gandhi said that he had warned the leaders of All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) before the party suffered a defeat in the recently concluded Assam Assembly elections. He said some leaders had been complacent about the outcome given the other indications that he felt he saw from other states which had earlier encountered such issues.
Gandhi also pointed out an issue with the election process, saying opposition parties should go about doing ‘more’ work through grassroots and people. Comparing history, he drew an analogy that political organisation sometimes needs to change when a challenge comes along and, with this analogy, came up the Congress movement during Indian freedom movement.
He cited a series of initiatives that hit people’s lives directly such as Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra undertaken across India.
The criticism is likely to fuel ongoing speculation in opposition ranks about how to prepare for other polls or political issues ahead.