SHILLONG: Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday downplayed the dissidence in the Congress centering on the leadership of Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, which resulted in the exodus of many Congress legislators, and asserted that the NPP was not a threat to the party.
In an interaction with the media, Rahul indicated that the Congress would retain power in Meghalaya and criticised the BJP for its faulty policies.
To a query by The Shillong Times as to whether the NPP was a threat in the upcoming polls, Rahul replied: “NPP is not all a threat. The Congress legislators and others left the party for fear of anti-incumbency.”
Several legislators left the Congress to join the NPP, BJP and PDF questioning the silence of the AICC over the style and functioning of the chief minister.
Asked about the resentment of Congress MLAs, Rahul said: “The chief minster did a lot of good things for the state, mainly focusing on infrastructure development.”
The Congress president attacked the BJP’s ideology which, according to him, was inimical to the nation.
“I do not want to go into specifics as to how many seats we will get. But there is a feeling across the country that the BJP is not listening to the people and taking decisions unilaterally. There is a backlash against it,” he said.
The Prime Minister had promised 2 crore jobs would be provided to the youth after he assumes power. “Where are those jobs,” asked Rahul.
“India is asking the fundamental questions to Mr Modi. He came to power on a platform of economic growth and providing jobs. But after he came to power, the economy went down and hardly any job was created,” he said.
Besides Meghalaya, Rahul said his party would perform well in the upcoming Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka.
“There is an assault on the culture of Meghalaya, the North-eastern states and that of the country due to the imposition of a single agenda and the ideology of the BJP and the RSS,” he added.
There are concerns among all sections of the people as well as the church leaders of the state, he said, that a Unitarian agenda is being imposed which has to be fiercely resisted.
