Sonia targets Modi, slams NDA govt's 'dictatorial' tendencies

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and charged that the National Democratic Alliance government has ‘dictatorial’ tendencies even as her party's leaders met in New Delhi to draw up a strategy for painting the ruling alliance as being "anti farmer".

In her opening remarks at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the party's apex decision-making body, Sonia accused the prime minister of ‘ignoring provocative statements and speeches’ by members of his Cabinet as well as Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and alleged that it was a continuation of the ‘strategy of polarisation’ adopted during Lok Sabha polls.

With the party facing a depleting support base ever since its debacle in the general elections last year, Sonia asked senior leaders to ‘propose ways and means to reach out to the masses’ at the meeting which was held to deliberate on plans for holding nationwide agitations against the land ordinance and other farmer issues.

On the question of the ordinance, she said, "The country's democratic institutions are being undermined. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has already promulgated 10 ordinances in its seven-month tenure", and added that the NDA dispensation is operating through a ‘perilous’ notion that ordinances constitute good governance.

She also questioned whether there was ‘an ulterior motive behind this hurry (to bring ordinances)?’

Accusing the government of having ‘effectively destroyed’ the Land Acquisition Act, which was brought in by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, she said that NDA "brought back, through the back door, the law passed by the British in 1894."

At the meeting which went on for four hours, the party also discussed organisational issues like re-introducing the active-member concept, bringing down the tenure of elected office bearers from five to three years and providing 50 per cent reservation to SC, ST, OBC and minorities in district and state committees of the party.

Also at the meeting, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for empowering grassroots workers and delegating powers to block presidents.

Meanwhile, scotching media speculation regarding elevation of Rahul as the Congress president, All India Congress Committee general secretary Ambika Soni said the matter was not on the agenda of CWC and there was no discussion in that regard at the meeting.

"That was not on the agenda. What was not on the agenda cannot be disccused... When we are getting the help of both, why are you talking about it again and again," she said when asked whether anybody had raised the issue of Rahul's elevation.

Read the full text of Sonia’s speech HERE