I am an idealist, BJP our brothers and sisters: Cong president Rahul

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 16

Frenzy and cheer marked the coronation of Rahul Gandhi as the 49th Congress president today with emotions of party workers running high and sounds of celebratory crackers renting the air.

The excitement of a long-awaited transition was palpable at the jam-packed AICC headquarters with outgoing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi having to halt her farewell speech twice to let cadres rejoice the entry of her son and successor.

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“You have chosen Rahul as your leader...,” she declared in a conscious move to challenge BJP’s charges of the rise of another dynast in the Congress.

The 71-year-old longest serving Congress chief went on to laud Rahul’s forbearance, saying: “He is my son and it won’t be suitable for me to praise him. But this much I will say. He has seen violence since childhood and the savage personal attacks he has confronted since entering politics have only made him stronger. I am proud of his forbearance and have full faith he’ll lead the party with a pure heart.”

Earlier, Sonia Gandhi joined Congress poll authority members in presenting the election certificate to her 47-year-old son, who kissed his mother in acceptance.

To anxious cadres awaiting a signal, his first message was: “I am an idealist.” He called the BJP his “brothers and sisters”, arguing that Congress’ ideology of inclusion extended to the BJP, which wanted a Congress-free India.

It was left to Sonia Gandhi to flag Congress’ electoral decline as she cautioned against the unprecedented challenge from the BJP. “Our party has lost several state elections… Never before have we faced the challenge we face today. The fundamentals of our Constitution are under attack but we are not the ones to bend in fear,” she warned, recalling the electoral rise of Congress from three state governments when she assumed charge in 1998 to two dozen, plus twin terms at the Centre.

Her message was that the “Congress must look within and stand by its principles to wage the fight against BJP’s politics of fear and suspicion”.

As she spoke, party workers outside AICC headquarters beat the drum and even performed religious rituals to usher in Rahul Gandhi’s presidency in a soft-Hindutva mould. This had some leaders asking if this was part of Congress principles.

Answers were unclear with Rahul Gandhi steering clear of Congress’ internal and ideological challenges in his speech, which he used to target the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking India “backward into medieval times”.

Moments after former PM Manmohan Singh urged him to sustain politics of hope over that of fear, Rahul Gandhi promised to defend the voice of every Indian. Speaking from a prepared text in Hindi and English (which he said he was using for South Indians), the new Congress chief also argued that the BJP was winning elections “not because it’s right, but because it is powerful”. “Their power is manipulative and distortive and stains everything it touches,” he rued.

“They hate, we love; they divide, we unite. That’s the difference between them and us,” he said, promising to transform the Grand Old Party into a grand old and new party. Sharing the stage were Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Motilal Vora, Janardan Dwivedi and election authority members Mullappally Ramachandran, Madhusudan Mistry and Bhubaneshwar Kalita. Some Congress Working Committee members like P Chidambaram were lucky to get inside the venue despite the mad rush at the gates which prevented entry. 

Senior leader Anand Sharma was pushed around by supporters thronging the venue. Top Congress leaders Manish Tewari, Abhishek Singhvi, Veerappa Moily and Prithviraj Chavan returned as they failed to secure an entry. Goa Congress chief Shantaram Naik even lost his iPhone in the frenzy that marked Rahul Gandhi’s inauguration. End of day, everyone agreed the event could have been better organised.