Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday said that the party’s organisational structure was “no match” to the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s combined arrangement. “They are able to turn out the vote and pull in the vote much stronger,” he said, adding that the BJP-RSS set up was weaker in comparison to the Trinamool Congress’ in West Bengal and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s in Tamil Nadu, IANS reported.
Speaking at the launch of his book Fearless in Opposition in Kolkata, he said democracy “still has to mature” in India. “Why is our democracy not allowing true opposition in a form other than a hunger strike or street protest? It is because people fear if ‘I say something against the government, I may be in trouble’, and that fear must go,” Chidambaram added.
The former finance minister further said that he had advised the Congress leadership of the need to devise an exclusive strategy for each state. The task is 29 times harder for us to devise a strategy that fits in every state [for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections...A strategy that is right for Gujarat will not be the same for Assam,” he said, according to PTI.
Chidambaram had earlier spoken in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the BJP’s colossal victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. He had said that the Assembly election results had showed that Modi was now the “most dominant political figure” who has a “pan-India appeal”.
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