New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday chaired his first Congress Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, and termed the 2G court verdict, acquitting all the accused, as a vindication of the party’s stand.
Flanked by his mother Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the BJP and said that its whole foundation and architecture were based on lies.
Sources said th CWC also discussed indiscipline in the party in the backdrop of senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar’s “neech” remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Though no names were mentioned, some members raised the issue of leaders making “irrelevant” statements that hurt the party and adversely impacted its prospects in elections.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Gandhi said, “I think 2G has been a vindication. The whole architecture of the BJP is about lies. The whole structure is about lies. If you see the ‘Modi model in Gujarat’, it was a lie… clearly…When we went to Gujarat and we spoke to the people of Gujarat, they said there is no model. What is going on is the stealing of resources of the people of Gujarat and that is their design.”
He also questioned the “silence” of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the changes made in the Rafale deal to allegedly help a businessman and the charges of financial irregularities by a firm linked to BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay.
The CWC also thanked former party president Mrs Sonia Gandhi for her contribution to the party. During the CWC proceedings, she sat next to Mr Gandhi in a clear indication that though she had retired as president of the party she will remain active in politics.
In his address to the CWC, Mr Gandhi said that currently the success for which the Congress can take credit is the “dismantling of the Modi model of development in Gujarat”.
He termed the Gujarat campaign as “unique” and “a real eye-opener” for him, where he got to know how the BJP designs campaigns and “uses hatred and untruth” to fight elections.
“At every stage, the BJP wanted to polarise the election but we wanted to keep everybody together and fight anger with love, respect and courage,” he added.
The new Congress president will soon be making changes in the party. The first indication of this came when in his address he announced that CWC meetings will be institutionalised and the committee will meet once in every two months. At present, the CWC meets two to three times a year.
Mr Gandhi also praised the Congress state units in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat for putting up a “spirited fight” against the BJP in the just-concluded Assembly polls.
Soon after the CWC concluded, the Congress released a statement asking whether Mr Modi, finance minister Arun Jaitley and the then comptroller and auditor general CAG Vinod Rai conspired to malign the UPA government with their falsehood and lies?
Now that the trial court has ruled that there is no scam, shouldn’t Mr Modi and Mr Jaitley apologise? asked the Congress.
The 2G verdict has come as a shot in the arm for the Congress after being beaten in Assembly elections of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
In Parliament, the Congress is expected to go on an offensive after the trial court washed off the party’s 2G scam taint that had virtually brought down the UPA government in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
