Sonia makes MP netas listen to worker class

BHOPAL: Congress president Sonia Gandhi delivered a very strong and subtle message to the frontline leaders from the state. As heavyweights — Union ministers Arjun Singh, Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachauri, Kanti Lal Bhuria and AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh — sat on the stage, young activists from the districts held the stage and delivered forthright speeches for more than 40 minutes.

This was not a one-off worker voicing his grievances but the entire spectrum of representatives — a Brahmin, a tribal, a woman, an OBC and a minority activist — giving his/her own analysis of what was wrong with the Congress, and where the remedy lays.

Never in the past would these leaders have gone through the mortification of listening to these workers, one of whom admitted that “our lips quiver even when we refer to their names.”

The occasion was a workers’ meeting organised by the state unit of the party. It was actually a forced event on the unit, as Ms Gandhi had decided to visit the state capital following an invitation from a newspaper group to inaugurate a school. She also inaugurated a Rs 2.70-crore building complex of the party state unit.

The event was marked by a heavy downpour that was indeed anticipated by the organisers as they had put up a water proof tent at the venue. Though workers were well protected from the rain, the leaders could not escape barbs from the activists who clearly held the division among leaders responsible for the “humiliating debacle of ’03”.

In her speech, Ms Gandhi underlined the importance of the continuing ideological clash between the Congress and the BJP. “The basic difference is that when we make promises before the elections, we go all out to fulfil these, and when the BJP makes such promises, it simply forgets these after coming to power,” she said.

Ms Gandhi also referred to the “price situation” that has been a cause of concern for her. She said that the Congress Working Committee had met specially to discuss this issue and expressed a hope that the burden on the common man would be eased over the next few days.

Virtually echoing the sentiments expressed by the workers regarding the inner party divide, the Congress president called upon the leaders to be generous and open-hearted and give up their petty agenda and ambitions. Her remarks have come in the context of a demand by a section of the party that the incumbent PCC chief, Subhash Yadav, should be replaced.