REPORT
Fighting
For Unity, Caring For Poor
NEW
DELHI : The two-day National Convention
of Block and District level presidents of the Congress party
on 28 and 29 March at the Ambedkar Stadium in New Delhi
followed by a massive Desh Bachao public rally on 30 March
were a resounding success. The two-day Convention which
reverberated with Congress ka Hath Garibaon ke Sath
slogan was the first-ever in the history of the Congress,
where the grassroot workers were invited to express their
views freely and frankly. By giving these workers a chance
to speak about the problems faced by them not only fortified
their trust in the party but will also strengthen the organisation.
Some of the speakers spoke
their hearts out and did not feel shy in calling a spade
a spade and thanked the Congress president, Smt. Sonia Gandhi
for giving them an opportunity to speak out openly. The
speakers who came from all corners of the country asked
for greater objectivity in the party functioning for better
and effective confrontation with BJP and its allied parties.
The Convention began with
an attack on the NDA government’s failures and scams. The
Congress leadership also gave out a new slogan "Congress
ka Hath, Gariboan ke Sath". That brought fresh enthusiasm
in party delegates who numbered over 8,000.
The Congress president,
Smt. Sonia Gandhi, in her opening speech analysed brilliantly
the international and national situation and in Iraq. It
was a charge-sheet against the NDA government and a veritable
list of failures and scams of the BJP and its allies. The
threat to secularism by dividing the people of the country
on religious lines and the failure to fight terrorism by
the Centre posed the biggest-challenge today, Smt. Gandhi
said. Giving an example she said the government which talked
of weeding out terrorism from the country had sent its minister
Jaswant Singh to escort hard-core terrorists to safety by
taking them to Kandhar in Afghanistan. "What better
example can this be of fighting terrorism," said Smt.
Gandhi. The Congress President said the present government
was recklessly privatising the Public Sector that had developed
the backward regions of the country and provided lakhs of
jobs to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
On the concluding day, in
a brief valedictory address Smt. Sonia Gandhi asked ministers
of Congress-ruled states to take into account the aspirations
of the grassroot workers. Smt. Gandhi also asked the ministers
to visit party offices in the districts and interact with
office-bearers and the Congress MPs and MLAs should take
the party’s office-bearers at district level into confidence
while implementing welfare projects. Amid cheers from the
assembled block presidents, the Congress president pulled
up party functionaries for not even caring to open the party
offices every day, in reply to a point raised by a block
president earlier.
Smt. Gandhi said that training
programmes for party workers should be started at the level
of districts and their Convention should be held at the
level of states. District level rallies should be organized
to create awakening among party workers, Smt. Gandhi said.
Smt. Gandhi also expressed her desire for instituting an
award called "Priyadarshani Puraskar" which will
be given at district and state level every year in recognition
of the good work done by any women in any field.
The grand finale to the
two-day Convention of Block and District presidents came
with a massive rally at the Ramlila Grounds where more than
lakh of Congress workers converged to hear the Congress
president, Smt. Sonia Gandhi on 30 March.
Smt. Gandhi lashed out at
the BJP-led NDA government for its failure on all fronts
in her 20-minute speech. Smt. Gandhi also made light of
Prime Minister’s snide remarks on the Congress party’s new
slogan of "Garibi Hatao" at the "Desh Bachao
rally" saying, "the plight of poor under the Vajpayee
regime has broken the backbone of almost every section of
the society".
Smt. Gandhi said the biggest
threat to the social and secular fabric of the country came
from the "nefarious" ideology of the Sangh Parivar
and its allies in collusion with the BJP. For national unity
and integrity, unity of the society is a vital component,
Smt. Gandhi said. Others who addressed the rally were Congress
chief ministers from Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Karnataka, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, Delhi and AICC
general secretary, Shri Kamal Nath and the Deputy Speaker,
Shri P.M. Sayeed.
- Rattan Francis
