Facing humiliating defeat in the recent Assembly polls, especially in Delhi, the Congress party now appeared to have learnt a lesson from the Aam Aadmi Party [AAP] and took brooms in hand to remove garbage from the streets “to connect with the society”.
The Bihar Congress leaders have literally hit the roads of Patna on Sunday with large-size brooms in hand to sweep away garbage.
“When you keep your household clean why can’t we do the same in our city and keep it cleanIJ So we have chosen some streets to make them garbage-free in order to maintain hygiene in the city”, said the State Congress chief Ashok Chaudhury.
A handful of State Congress leaders too were seen with the BPCC president sweeping the road and removing garbage from a few spots. The leaders were seen happily dumping garbage on a tractor from their shovel.
Most of the senior State Congress leader’s absence was conspicuous from the party’s sweeping exercise while many others preferred to remain inside their cozy warm environs fighting the winter winds in the city.
When asked if the Congress party has taken cue from the Aam Admi Party for this social work. The BPCC president Ashok Chaudhury denied and said: “The Congress party has been in this country for more than 100 years and it has been doing social work like this eversince. Why would we follow others”.
However, for the people of the State it was a rare sight that State Congress leaders were seen with brooms, shovels in their hands.
Interestingly, some of the party leaders like Shyam Sunder Singh Dheeraj were seen busy talking on their mobile phones all the time at the site while others were just being mute spectators.
“I’m now over 60 years and I’ve come here to boost morale of the party workers for this initiative”, said Shyam Sunder Singh Dheeraj.
But, the local people were not very much amused with the Congress leaders hitting the road to remove garbage.
“Yes, they have taken a cue from the AAP and it seems that they are now under tremendous pressure to connect with the common man and their problems which the Congress leaders have lost track of for the last several years”, said Rajesh Singh, a local resident.
“It is only a photo-op to market their leadership and to gather the attention of party high command. And, that has been the biggest flaw of the Congress party leaders who descend to take such exercises to establish a connection with common people just for publicity”, said a political observer, “such one-time photo-op will not do now for the any party, forget about the Congress “, he added further.
Significantly, some of the State Congress leaders appeared rather dissatisfied with this new initiative of the State party chief which is apparently to connect with the public. “It is just because we lost connection with the society for so many years that we’ve been swept away from the State…the party needs to take some serious, concrete steps to be in touch with the common man in a more effective way”, said party leader Umakant Singh.
“Merely taking brooms and shovels in hand to remove garbage symbolically and to be photographed would not help, instead it will boomerang on the party in the State,” he added further.
Meanwhile reports said that the Congress Yuvraj Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit Bihar in January apparently to boost the party leaders and workers for the upcoming general elections.
Though, the Aam Admi Party does not have a State unit but it has 10,000 and odd members across Bihar. On the other hand AAP has formed committees of ten to fifteen members in all the 38 districts of Bihar when they’d launched Operation Buniyad in many parts of the country last May, said the AAP leader Dr Ratneshwar.
Half of the AAP’s registered members in Bihar, interestingly, are young people of below 40 years of age. “And, many more are coming in to join the party after the assembly poll results. Everyday I get 10-15 calls from people expressing their willingness to join AAP”, said Dr Ratneshwar.
“Yes, after the Delhi results we’ve caught up common people’s attention more effectively”, he admitted.