Rahul tells Cong to use right horses

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, meeting AICC delegates on Saturday, told those from Maharashtra that there are two types of horses: one, a horse used for racing, and the other a bridegroom’s mount. “But in the Congress, we used horses meant for a baraat (bridegroom’s procession) for racing and used racehorses for the groom’s baraat,” suggesting how it cannot work.
The delegates, on the other hand, told Mr Gandhi that he should meet party workers more and more, undertake road shows like mother Sonia and late grandmother Indira Gandhi, should not encourage sycophants and field them in elections. The AICC delegates met him in groups at the party headquarters here on Saturday.
The Congress vice-president met delegates from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir and a few other states.
While some of the delegates were free and frank in expressing their views, some praised him for the speech he gave at the Congress meeting here on Friday. There was another category of delegates which told Mr Gandhi that his ideas and strategy did not translate at the grassroots level.
The common complaint, however, was that he is not accessible and approachable to party workers though senior leaders can meet him easily.
While a delegate from Madhya Pradesh told him that the Congress lost the state Assembly due to wrong candidates, Mr Gandhi was said to have corrected him, saying that “it was due to the big leaders” without naming them.
When Mr Gandhi asked a district Congress chief from Maharashtra to speak out openly, he said he could not as he did not want to make senior leaders present in the meeting his enemies.
While the Uttar Pradesh delegates are said to have suggested a change in the PCC, the common complaint was against the party’s ministers. First, they do not meet and, even if they meet, they do not help them solve problems.
Some of the delegates observed that the Maharashtra delegates raised “sponsored” questions, like appointing a woman PCC chief.
“We could meet him for less than 10 minutes, only four delegates were allowed to speak. Of them, one praised Rahulji, another asked a sponsored question and a third could not open his mind,” some of the delegates told a group of reporters later.
The delegates from Jammu and Kashmir wanted the party to fight the Lok Sabha elections in the state on its own, saying that the ally — the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference — is not at all trustworthy.
Some delegates said party workers should be accommodated in boards and corporations in the state where the Congress is in power.
Some told Mr Gandhi that AICC officials are not effective in attacking the BJP.
AICC general secretaries in charge of the states, PCC chiefs and CLP leaders were present during Mr Gandhi’s interaction.