Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor downplayed Rahul Gandhi's recent comment on regional parties' "lacking ideology" which enraged regional allies at a time when the Congress party is planning to focus on alliances ahead of the 2024 general elections.
In his address at his party's "Chintan Shivir" (brainstorming camp) in Udaipur, Gandhi had claimed that regional parties cannot fight the BJP and the RSS as they lack ideology. The Congress can fight them, he had said.
"I think what he (Rahul Gandhi) meant — at least we all understood by what he meant — was that we have a national vision. We speak for and think of the country as a whole. Whereas regional parties by their very character and nature are usually confined to one particular region or interest group," Tharoor told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
He further said: "I think, for example, much of the ideology of Trinamool, the RJD, the Samajwadi Party or even, for the most part, the DMK, will be congruent to and compatible with what the Congress stands for".
Congress's Jharkhand ally Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Bihar ally Rashtriya Janata Dal both questioned the remark. Estranged ally HD Kumaraswamy, chief of the Janata Dal Secular, also made jibes at Gandhi.
In an apparent sarcastic note, Kumaraswamy asked the former Congress president to elaborate to regional parties about ideological commitment, while saying that the national party has no presence in most parts of the country.
He said: "Congress toppled the I K Gujral-led United Front government, demanding that DMK be kept out of the Cabinet by citing the links of the Dravidian party with the LTTE in the backdrop of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. But, the same Congress in the later years shared a cordial, political relationship with that party."
Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Janata Dal asked Rahul Gandhi to look at recent electoral history of regional parties putting up a strong fight against the BJP as it took a swipe at him for his critical comments aimed at them, saying the Congress leader's claims were "bizarre" and not in sync with his own party's stand.
RJD spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha said regional parties are strong in a majority of Lok Sabha seats in the fight against the BJP, and the Congress should settle to be "co-travellers" and let them be in the "driving seat" in over 320 of the 543 parliamentary constituencies. This is a point RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has also made, he noted.
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May 17, 2022 at 09:48AM
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