Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday kicked off her party’s campaign for the coming lok Sabha election with mild attacks on the BJP and left and coming down heavily on rampant groupism in the State party unit.
Inaugurating the State-level convention of the Kerala PCC to mark the launch of election campaigning at the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium in Kochi on Saturday, Sonia said that the party could not afford groupism anymore as “of all elections, these coming elections are important because these elections are about our country’s future.”
Sonia, who had less than a week ago appointed group-neutral leaders VM Sudheeran and VD Satheesan as president and vice-president respectively of the Kerala PCC angering “group managers” in the State Congress, said, “We are all one group. We are all Congressmen and women and that is how we will fight the coming electoral battle and that is how we will win.”
Criticising the CPI(M), leader of the Opposition lDF in Kerala, Sonia said they had not been able to stand by the people either in West Bengal or Kerala, the two states where they were said to be in strength. She said all that the CPI(M), based on an ideology which had lost its relevance, had done was to oppose whatever the UPA Government had done.
“The choice before the voters of Kerala is to vote for a party which is strong on its ideologies… While we practice non-violence, they (left) are engaged in brutal killings and murders,” Sonia said. In the 2009 lok Sabha polls in Kerala with 20 seats, the Congress-led UDF had won 16 seats while the lDF got the remaining seats. The Congress alone had won 13 seats.
Referring to the Congress’s electoral battle against the BJP and the NDA it leads, Sonia said, “The choice is very clear. The choice is to vote for a party which strives for a united India or to vote for one which is trying to divide out country.” The Congress’s rival were asking the people for a change but they had not specified what that change was, she said.
Describing the Bills Parliament had passed during the UPA’s tenure, Sonia said, “We have been here for more than six decades and we have done lots for the people. They (the Congress’s rivals) wear a mask and hence we must resist them with all our might as we have to protect the secular ethos and the future of our country.”
later in the day, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, leader of the ‘A’ group in the Congress, conveyed his unhappiness over the appointment of Sudheeran as the State party chief but Sonia replied that the initiative was necessary for strengthening the party in Kerala. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, leader of Chandy’s rival ‘I’ group, also took part in the convention.
Inaugurating the Nirbhaya Keralam - Surakshita Keralam (Fearless Kerala, Secure Kerala) programme, a Kerala Government-civil society initiative to tackle crimes and women and children, in Kochi earlier in the day, the UPA chairperson regretted that the Government had not been able to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill in the lok Sabha for lack of consensus.
Sonia said that her party would continue its “struggle” for the legislation which sought to reserve 33 percent of seats in Parliament and State legislatures for women. The UPA Government had initiated several schemes for women’s welfare but these alone would not ensure women’s safety, she said, adding that it needed “awareness campaigns and training young minds”.