New Delhi: Claiming that the need of the hour was to strengthen party organization, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge pulled up warring leaders for making statements beyond the party line at the Congress Working Committee meeting in New Delhi.
Kharge warned that ‘tough decisions’ were needed to be taken to fix accountability within the party. He also called for removing shortcomings by learning lessons from the election results in Haryana and Maharashtra, where the Congress lost.
The meeting was held to analyse the party’s morale-crushing defeats in both the states. According to reports, Kharge claimed that infighting was hurting the grand old party. He urged leaders to stop making anti-party remarks.
#WATCH | Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting begins at the AICC headquarters in Delhi in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Lok Sabha LoP and MP Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders pic.twitter.com/Vs1z0s2dUx
— ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2024
“Unless we fight elections unitedly and stop making statements against each other, how will we be able to defeat our opponents politically?” the Congress president said, as quoted by India Today.
How did Rahul Gandhi react to Kharge’s ‘stop infighting’ remark?
When Kharge made such remarks, Rahul Gandhi, responded by saying, “Kharge ji has cracked the whip.” He supported and endorsed what the Congress chief had mentioned.
Speaking about the election process, Kharge alleged that the EVMs made the electoral process ‘suspicious.’ He stressed that it was the constitutional responsibility of the Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections in the country. According to the Congress chief, the state polls should not be have been fought on national issues. “For how long will state leaders fight assembly polls on national issues with national leaders,” he added.
Kharge said the party would have to evolve a strategy to effectively counter the ‘propaganda and misinformation’ being spread by its rivals. In such a scenario, he stated that it was important for the party workers to stay united under all circumstances. “The party also has the weapon of disciplining. But we do not want to put our workers in any bondage,” he added, as quoted by India Today.
‘Can’t achieve results by following old methods’
The leader also asserted that the party couldn’t achieve success by following old methods. “You have to see what your political opponent is doing on a daily basis. We have to take decisions on time. Accountability has to be fixed,” he said, according to reports. Kharge said that the Congress may have lost elections, but issues of unemployment, inflation, and economic inequality were plaguing the country. He asserted that the caste census is also a key topic.