The party is united and leaders are allowed to express their views openly as there is no dictatorship in the Congress, the party’s communication head Jairam Ramesh said on September 5, 2022.
His remarks came amid the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) digs, and former party stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad’s comment that the party needs to focus on “Congress jodo“ (unite Congress) instead of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
“Those who are disgruntled in the Congress, they keep giving statements. But I think the party is united today. Yesterday, the rally was very successful and every worker is committed, there is excitement, energy, and our sole aim is to undertake the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Mr. Ramesh told reporters.
“The Congress is a big family and there are people of different views. We are a democratic party, people air their views openly — some write letters, some tweet, some give an interview — and this shows democracy. There is no dictatorship in our party, we don’t silence anyone,” he added.
Mr. Ramesh said that efforts are made to reach out to party leaders, “but some people leave despite that and hurl abuses”.
“I don’t want to say anything about them, I have already spoken about them,” Mr. Ramesh said in a reference to Mr. Azad, adding, “But to say that ‘Congress jodo’ should be our priority, that is wrong. For us, the priority is to unite the country.”
In the past few weeks, the party’s leadership has been at the receiving end from some of the members of G-23 or the ginger group that has been pushing for internal reforms for the past two years and had written a letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
While Mr. Azad quit the party after blaming Rahul Gandhi for its decline, some of his other G-23 colleagues, like Anand Sharma and Manish Tewari, have been pushing for a transparent presidential polls by demanding that the list of electors be made public.
So, when the absence of Mr. Sharma and Mr. Tewari from the “ Mehangai Par Halla Bol” anti-inflation rally on Sunday was being questioned, the Lok Sabha member, who is out the country, put out a tweet.
“A memory Jog . It was I (@ManishTewari) who opened the Price Rise debate in the Lok Sabha on 1st of August 2022,” Mr. Tewari tweeted.
Though Mr. Tewari did not elaborate on his cryptic tweet, it’s being interpreted as a counter to the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, who credited Mr. Gandhi for the price rise debate in Parliament.
