Congress needs to imbibe Steve Job's Apple culture, not RSS: Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi urged his partymen to imbibe the 'team culture' of Steve Jobs' Apple and shun rigid hierarchies like the RSS in its bid to regain lost ground in UP.

"Party must work like Steve Jobs' Apple and be open to all opinions and not just some leaders. We (Congress) allow people to have different ideologies, unlike the RSS," the Congress leader told his party members at a chintan shivir in Mathura.

Rahul Gandhi is in the Mathura to assess the party's strategy in the state which goes to assembly polls in early 2017.

"The Congress party is not like the RSS which guides the government. Every member's voice is heard here unlike what happens under (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat," Gandhi said at the meet, which is the party's first major programme to deliberate on the issue of toning of the outfit after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls that saw Congress securing just two of the total 80 seats in the backdrop of a Narendra Modi wave.

Urging his partymen to work as a family, Gandhi said: "Earlier, I used to see you all like an army, but now I see you as my family members and we have to work together, take care of each other as family members."

Continuing his attack on the PM, the Congress leader said: "Modiji is in a self-destruct mode. Even if we all tried, we would not be able to harm him as much as he is doing himself."

At a Kisan Samman Rally in New Delhi on Sunday, Gandhi promised not to let the controversial Land Bill issue pass muster in the state assemblies, saying the PM's "Make in India" campaign was actually "Take in India" as it has "no place for farmers and labourers".