SHILLONG: As several leaders in the country as well as in Meghalaya are set to desert the Congress party, Former External Affairs Minister and senior Congress leader, Salman Khurshid on Saturday lambasted the leaders who have deserted the party for greener pastures saying party should not accept those leaders ever again.
Talking to newsmen here, Salman Khurshid said that his attitude was ‘good riddance’ and added that the people who had left the party got so much from the party when they were in difficult times.
The statement of the tall Congress leader assumes significance as senior Congress leaders in the state like Rowell Lyngdoh, Prestone Tynsong and others are set to leave Congress and join the NPP.
Terming their shifting of allegiance as unacceptable, Khurshid added that he would have respected people if they were disenchanted with the party and withdrew from politics but instead they were joining parties about which they had been critical for years.
Khurshid pointed out that Congress had a history of emerging stronger every time when leaders left the party. He added that it was only the leaders who had left the party and workers were still with the party.
On being asked about Rahul Gandhi becoming the chief of Congress, Khurshid said that they had accepted Rahul Gandhi as their leader
“He (Rahul Gandhi) has something in his mind and he is working to that and as and when he disclosed his plans, we will be there to support him,” he said.
Asserting that the generation change in the leadership of Congress is on the anvil, Khurhid stressed that the new structure of leadership should be put in place well before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Reacting to a query about the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he informed that a serious thinking was going on for coordinated plans of the opposition parties to take on the BJP in which the Congress would have a major role to play.
“ With little time, BJP may fall on its own, but we cannot take chances as they are nefarious and they would do vicious and divisive politics to misled the people,” he added.
Slamming the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government at the centre, he rued that the Prime Minister was launching a scheme everyday and many of those schemes were routine schemes for year which Congress had initiated.
“ He only changes the name of the scheme and schemes are being introduced which are not thoughtful,” he said.
Castigating the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the senior Congress leader said that the intent of cleaning the country was good but not even a single inch of land, river or city had been cleaned and added that Government must apply its mind on how to clean the country instead of just picking up the broom and sweeping the streets.
Khurshid even added that the much talked about Goods and Service Tax (GST) was rolled out in a haste and this was the reason mistakes continued to crop up.
“Now they have changed the rates because they have realised that elections are coming and the trading class is unhappy,” he said, adding that the economic policy of the NDA Government is full of flaws and economy of the country has come crashing down which will not be fixed overnight.
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