BHOPAL, 22 April — The main opposition Congress party President Sonia Gandhi has called for party workers to make a concerted effort to unmask the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government which is working against farmers’ interests.
She urged party workers to end their in-fighting and fan out to rural areas to inform people about the central government’s anti-farmer policies.
Sonia was addressing the concluding session of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee’s two-day regional convention in Jabalpur yesterday. While castigating the government, she also took her own party leaders to task. She admitted that Congress’s mandate has taken a beating in the last few years and blamed partymen for this. She said Congress has become alienated from the masses and the party would have to give importance to grassroots workers. The Congress political environment warms up at election time only when there is a mad rush for party tickets by the leaders, she said. “It is not a good omen for a political party with a rich past”, she said.
Meanwhile, Mohsina Kidwai, the Congress general secretary, has claimed that in the elections of the five state assemblies that Congress would fare well. She hoped that Congress would be in a position to form governments in two states — Kerala and Assam.
Mohsina said in West Bengal in case the Congress-Trianamool Congress received a majority in the elections that Congress has agreed to make Trianamool chief, Mamata, chief minister.
