Congress not superior to other parties, it is not the big daddy: Rahul Gandhi

Congress is in no way superior to other opposition parties, said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at the Ideas for India conference at Cambridge University in London. “I don’t view the Congress as the big daddy,” he said. His remarks assume significance in view of what he had said a few days ago at the party’s Chintan Shivir at Udaipur. He had then said that the Congress alone can fight the BJP as regional parties neither have an ideology nor a centralised approach. His statement had upset many parties in the opposition.

He seems to have now adopted a more nuanced position. Rahul said that all the parties are fighting the same battle, but the “ideological battle that is taking place is between the national vision of the RSS and the national vision of the Congress.”

‘Going to people is the answer’

He said the Congress was not winning elections because of polarisation and the dominance of the media by the BJP. “The fight in India is not a political fight, it is not a fight between one political organisation and a set of other political parties,” he said. “The only way for us… is to go to the large mass of the India people. And that is not just the Congress… that is for all opposition parties,” he said.

Also read: Allies slam Rahul Gandhi’s ‘regional parties’ remark

“We have to think of large-scale mass movements on issues like unemployment, prices, regional issues and we have to coordinate with our friends in the opposition. So, I don’t view the Congress as the big daddy. It is a group effort with the opposition but it is a fight to regain India,” he said.

Referring to his statement on regional parties at Udaipur, Rahul said: “The point I made in Udaipur, which was misconstrued, is that this is an ideological battle now and it is a national ideological battle…of course, we respect… for example the DMK as a Tamil political organisation, but the Congress is the party that has the ideology at the national level… In no way is the Congress superior to the other opposition parties. We are all fighting the same battle… they have their space… we have our space. But the ideological battle that is taking place is between the national vision of the RSS and the national vision of the Congress.”

‘Fight to regain India’

On why the BJP is winning elections despite issues like unemployment and rising prices, he said it is because of “polarisation and total dominance of the media.” He added: “There is another thing which one has to accept, which is that the RSS has built a structure that has penetrated into the large mass. And the opposition parties and the Congress need to build such structures. And we need to go much more aggressively to the large mass of people… the 60-70 per cent of people who do not vote for the BJP and we need to do it together.”

“The Congress is fighting to regain India. It’s an ideological battle now — a national ideological battle. A soul without a voice means nothing. India’s voice has been crushed. The deep state is chewing the Indian state, much like what happened in Pakistan,” he said adding, “We are not just fighting the BJP. We are now fighting the institutional structure of the Indian state, which has been captured by an organisation.”

“We will not be able to match the funds they have. We will have to think of large-scale mass movements on issues like price rises and unemployment,” the Congress leader added.

Also read: Congress Chintan Shivir vows to fight ‘divisive’ BJP