Reflecting on Congress’ declining fortunes, the veteran leaders of the party have asked for a thorough introspection for the reasons to ascertain the continued losses suffered by the party. A year after the embarrassing poll drubbing in the 2019 General elections, months after its exit in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and the ongoing political imbroglio in Rajasthan, senior Congress leader, Manish Tewari has raised pertinent questions on the role of UPA in sabotaging the Congress party.
Manish Tewari took to Twitter to raise questions on UPA after reports of a heated argument between the party’s veteran politicians and young leaders at a meeting of its Rajya Sabha MPs convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi Thursday started doing the rounds on the Internet.
1.Was UPA responsible for decline in Fortunes of @INCIndia in 2014 is a VALID QUES-MUST be gone into?
— Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) July 31, 2020
2.Equally valid is WAS UPA SABOTAGED FROM WITHIN?
3.2019 DEFEAT MUST ALSO BE ANALYSED.
4. NO CHARGE AGAINST UPA HAS STOOD THE TEST OF LAW -6 YRS ON.https://t.co/SYcSvgFtTp
Casting aspersions Congress, Tewari asserted that UPA’s role in the declining fortunes of the Congress party in 2014 must be analysed. He also insinuated if the UPA alliance was sabotaged from within, adding that 2019 General election defeat also needs to be examined.
When one of the journalists explicitly asked if Manish is indicating sabotage, the former Union Minister said that he is indeed doing that, insinuating that someone within the UPA alliance was responsible for setting up Ex C&AG Vinod Rai’s 2G report, one of the reasons for UPA’s undoing in 2014 General elections.
Yes starting with Ex C&AG Vinod Rai
— Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) July 31, 2020
and his fraudulent 2-G report .
What would be interesting to find out someday is not that the report was FAKE but who set him to it @IamNaveenKapoor https://t.co/cUa2IiItij
The bold questions from Manish Tewari came following a meeting of the Rajya Sabha MP called by interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi where the young leaders and senior leadership of the Congress party laid into each other for the party’s abysmal performance.
Sparks flew in Rajya Sabha meeting between the Congress veterans and young leaders
While senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal spoke about the need for “introspection” on defeats and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that party should reach out to people to understand their disillusionment with Congress, the newly-elected Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Satav was rather acerbic in his opinion. He quipped introspection should begin at home.
‘Introspect by all means…. but how did we come to 44…that should also be looked into. We were 200-plus in 2009. What led us to this fall? You all are now stressing the need to introspect. You were all ministers then. In all honesty, it should be looked into where you failed. It is important to introspect from the UPA-II period,” Indian Express quoted an MP who in turn quoted Satav as having said during the virtual conference.
Satav’s sharp remarks came in the presence of key leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, who was presiding the meeting. Besides Gandhi, in attendance were former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ahmed Patel Chidambaram, A K Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma.
According to the sources cited by Indian Express, veteran party leader Shamsher Singh Dullo retaliated to the new leaders, saying that the veterans split their blood and sweat to build the party and not the neophyte politicians. He also added that the senior members of the party are sidelined while the sycophants and hangers-on are being rewarded. Making critical remarks against the deteriorating party culture, Dullo said, “Sycophancy prevails in the party and promotion and posts are being given in the party based on liking and not on merit and seniority.”
Congress leader Khusbu Sundar lauds NEP 2020 against party stand
The new breed of Congress leaders has not shied away from expressing their opinions freely, even if that means going against the party line. Recently, Congress leader Khusbu Sundar expressed her support for the government’s National Education Policy(NEP) 2020 that was released on Thursday, making it clear that her stand on NEP has been different from the party standpoint and is from a citizen’s perspective.
Lauding the sweeping reforms in the Education Sector that were brought almost after a gap of 34 years, Khusbhu tweeted,”#NewEducationPolicy2020 A welcome move.”
She later tweeted, “My stand on #NEP2020 differs from my party and I apologise to @RahulGandhi Ji for that, but I rather speak the fact than be a head-nodding robot or a puppet. Everything is and cannot be about agreeing to your leader, but about being courageous to voice your opinion bravely as a citizen.”
My stand on #NEP2020 differs from my party n I apologize to @RahulGandhi ji for that, but I rather speak the fact than be a head nodding robot or a puppet. Everything is n cannot be about agreeing to ur leader, but about being courages to voice ur opinion bravely as a citizen ..
— KhushbuSundar ❤️ (@khushsundar) July 30, 2020
On Wednesday, the much-awaited National Education Policy (NEP) was announced by HRD Minister Ramesh Nishank and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar after the Union Cabinet approved the new policy earlier in the day. The policy aims at making “India a global knowledge superpower”.
