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Rahul wants Kutch played up in Punjab
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi wants what happened in Kutch to be a Lok Sabha campaign issue in Punjab. He has asked the Punjab Congress leaders to put before people how the Gujarat government of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is trying to oust Punjabi farmers from a region they developed.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi wants what happened in Kutch to be a Lok Sabha campaign issue in Punjab.
He has asked the Punjab Congress leaders to put before people how the Gujarat government of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is trying to oust Punjabi farmers from a region they developed.
The Amritsar district Congress committee (DCC) was one of the seven from the country chosen to interact with Rahul through videoconferencing. Senior leaders were not invited, as Rahul wanted a free and frank feedback from the district- and block-level workers.
Interacting with Amritsar DCC president Gurjit Singh Aujla, Rahul came up with the suggestion to highlight the Kutch issue and told Aujla to implement it. "There (in Gujarat) they (BJP) are enemies of Punjabis and here (in Punjab), they (BJP) act as their friends," said Rahul, referring to the Akali-BJP alliance in the state.
Rahul also brought up the state issue of non-governance and advised his team to win over the "unhappy segments".
Primary purpose
Agreeing with Aujla that wrong candidates had cost the party the 2012 state elections, Rahul said it was the reason why he wanted a new selection process.
"Everyone cannot be given the right to choose candidates but a majority opinion can be solicited. That's the idea behind conducting primaries in some Lok Sabha constituencies," said the Congress vice-president.
The DCC gave feedback to the leader about dissidence and requested him to bridge the divide before it widened. "There has to be unity among workers, as the party draws its strength from them," Rahul observed at the end of the 13-minute session that Aujla, later, replayed for the media.
