NEW DELHI, 28 December 2003 — Virtually sounding the war cry amid talk of snap Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party yesterday expressed its willingness to firm up allies to take on a resurgent BJP saying the “process has begun”.
“The process of discussions on forming an alliance with like-minded parties has already begun. Congress is running coalition governments not only in Maharashtra but other states as well,” AICC president Sonia Gandhi told a mammoth rally at Shivaji Park ground in central Bombay.
Pushing the political clock back to more than a century to remind Indians of the role played by the Congress party in securing independence from the British empire, Gandhi added a new touch to her campaign for the coming parliamentary elections. Thanking crowd, Gandhi said that the Congress party was formed in this city.
Yesterday was the 118th anniversary of the Congress formed in 1885, she told them.
Lest the crowd have any apprehensions about her “foreign origins,” she made a special effort to identify herself with Bombay, a city, which she said holds a “special place” in her heart. She described Bombay as “Chhota Bharat” (small India). It was from here that Lokmanya Tilak (Bal Gangadhar Tilak, freedom fighter) raised the slogan, “Freedom is my birthright and I shall have it,” Gandhi told the rally.
Besides, Bombay was the birthplace of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, she said.
Turning to the past she said, “Those who compare 50 years of the Congress with five years of the NDA’s rule should remember that it was the Congress that made India prosperous. But the NDA has destroyed this in just five years.”
Incidentally, it was her first public meeting after the severe drubbing the party received in state elections in the Hindi heartland.
Sharply attacking the BJP for forming “opportunistic” coalition, Sonia, in her speech in Hindi, that lasted for 17 minutes, said: “Congress will enter into an alliance with like-minded and ideologically similar parties to serve the country and its people”.
Setting the tone for the campaign, Sonia said: “If voted to power, our priority would be development and to tackle the issue of unemployment.”
She also laid emphasis on addressing matters of electricity, drinking water, education and health. The opposition leader in the Lok Sabha came down heavily on the BJP-led NDA federal government at the center for “crossing all limits of corruption”.
She lambasted the NDA government for growing unemployment, spiraling inflation, “selling” Public Sector Units (PSUs) at a pittance and failure in foreign policy.
