Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s video-conference over Google Hangout began with a bang and ended with a whimper at the local Congress office in Chandigarh.Most of the party workers and Congress leaders from the city who were all gaga about the affair, gave it a miss on Saturday.
Others who attended the session tried to keep up with the gibberish lecture, which was being broadcast on a screen, over the internet which was down resulting in a broken transmission. It was mostly common household gossips and yawns that made a spectacle at the Congress office in Sector 35.
lone man standing was Pawan Kumar Bansal, Congress candidate from Chandigarh for the upcoming lok Sabha elections. Others who were present with him at the video conference were Gurbaksh Rawat, Darshan Kumar Garg, Satya Prakash Agarwal and councillor Pradeep Chabra.
Talking to the media Bansal said, “The Google Hangout sessions are attempt to bridge the gap between the leader and office bearers. Rahul Gandhi has always tried to take forward the Congress in an inclusive manner with the participation of all party workers.”
However, ex-mayor Subhash Chawla, Mukesh Bassi, Rajbala Malik, Poonam Sharma and Sheila Devi were nowhere to be seen. Chandigarh’s mayor Kalyan and deputy mayor Satish Kainth reached at the venue when almost everyone who were present there had left for the day.
Even the conference was not enlivening for the audience, despite the fact that Rahul Gandhi took an aggressive stand against the BJP. In the course of the conference, Gandhi agreed to the fact that ruling party should have dealt with the Opposition with more vigour over the issue of stalling Parliament.
He criticised the BJP for putting up a one-man show for the upcoming lok Sabha elections and lambasted the Opposition over various issues, but in doing so, he only repeated the words that he has been telling for the past few years.