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Mr Kharge appealed to young Congress workers to work with more responsibility

New Delhi:

Exhorting young Congress workers to increase their connect with the people, party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said they should use social media to effectively communicate the Congress ideology and agenda and expose the BJP’s “falsehood”, while maintaining discipline and decency.

Chairing a meeting of the heads of the party’s frontal organisations and cells, Mr Kharge also said, “Do not make any such comment which may spoil the atmosphere.”

The BJP has an organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), “which works to divide people by polarising society for electoral gains”, he said.

“We have to fight public issues by keeping our ideology at the forefront. We will fight and win,” Mr Kharge said at the meeting and asked its participants to make the Manipur-to-Maharashtra Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which begins on January 14, a success.

He alleged that the BJP is hiding its failures in the last 10 years by playing up emotive issues for political gains. The BJP is also scared of the INDIA bloc of 28 opposition parties, Mr Kharge said.

The Congress president told the meeting’s participants that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru after the first Lok Sabha elections in 1952 had said, “We were successful in the general elections where we worked among the public. But we failed where we held only public meetings. If we do not mix with the people, do not work among them, we cannot hope to win their trust.”

लोक सभा चुनाव की तैयारियों व देश के सबसे बड़े जन-आंदोलन के दूसरे अध्याय – ‘भारत जोड़ो न्याय यात्रा’ को सफ़ल बनाने के लिए आज अखिल भारतीय कांग्रेस कमेटी के विभिन्न विभागों व अग्रिम संगठनों से गहन चर्चा जारी है।

चर्चा से पहले मेरे शुरूआती वक्तव्य के अंश –

• आज की बैठक का मुख्य… pic.twitter.com/XtcPcaXGjJ

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) January 10, 2024

“You all also have to expand your roles in terms of elections. You have to be in constant touch with voters, and along with answering their questions, we have to counter the falsehoods being spread by our political opponents,” Congress chief Kharge said.

“You have to keep your point also while always remaining disciplined. Do not make any such comment which may spoil the atmosphere,” he said.

Mr Kharge also appealed to young Congress workers to work with more responsibility.

“India is the youngest country in the world, with about 65 per cent of its population below 35 years of age. You are all connected to modern methods of communication. Social media is influencing politics a lot. Young people are more powerful in this way than the older generation,” he said.

“You have to pay attention to all issues with more caution. Whatever answers we give, there should be decency in putting them across,” Mr Kharge said.

The Congress’ fight is against the mindset of the BJP and the RSS as their methods are different, he said.

“If every unit of our organisation stands firm, we can easily defeat them,” he said and highlighted the Congress’ 2004 and 2009 general election wins. It was under Sonia Gandhi’s leadership that “we together defeated them twice in a row”, Mr Kharge said.

On the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra, he said this a march to save democracy and the Constitution.

The earlier Bharat Jodo Yatra was also a major success, but “still, this yatra (Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra) had to be carried out because the (Narendra) Modi government has closed the doors of a national platform like Parliament”, Mr Kharge said.

“Discussions on fundamental issues of the country is closed in Parliament. From Manipur to Parliament’s security, unemployment, inflation and all other issues, discussions were not allowed,” he said.

Mr Kharge also said in the Winter session of Parliament, 146 opposition MPs were suspended, and claimed this was the highest in parliamentary history.

“What was their crime? They wanted to discuss the incident of attack on Parliament. The government suspended them and then passed bills like the criminal law bills, telecommunication bill and CEC Bill without the participation of the opposition. Anti-people bills were passed in the same way as farm laws were passed in 2020. Now the public has started opposing them,” he said.

The opposition is together under the INDIA alliance and this is making the BJP-led NDA uneasy, Mr Kharge said and added that the NDA has understood the power of the INDIA bloc. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)