Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Sunday mocked United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s appointment as the interim Congress president. The Congress Working Committee appointed Sonia Gandhi to the post after Rahul Gandhi refused to reconsider his decision to quit.
Senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Congress is yet to learn from its mistakes in the Lok Sabha elections, the Hindustan Times reported. “The Congress should choose a leader through a democratic process and if it fails to do so, no one can save the party,” Chouhan told reporters in Bhubaneswar. “It seems, they don’t have guts. The Congress leaders are dependent on a single family but that particular family has already lost its charisma.”
Chouhan said on the contrary, the BJP is an example for other parties as its leaders grow naturally in its fold. “Political parties governed by dynasty, family and caste politics were defeated everywhere, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the general elections,” Chouhan said.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the Congress is playing “musical chairs”. “They had to zero down to someone who belongs to the Gandhi family at the end,” he told ANI. “We can also say that Congress has travelled a full circle, it is back to square one from Sonia Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi to Sonia Gandhi, it is a musical chair which is only playing music to one particular family.” He also said it proved that Rahul Gandhi had been a mistake as Congress chief.
West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh called the appointment of Sonia Gandhi “completely absurd”, PTI reported. “The fate of the Congress and the Gandhi family have been intertwined for several decades,” he said. “The party promotes dynasty politics and has never thought beyond the Gandhi family. This is completely absurd.”
He said that the people have rejected the Gandhi family and their political survival is now in question.
However, Rajya Sabha Congress MP Pradip Bhattacharya lashed out at Ghosh. “Dilip Ghosh should stop making insensitive and baseless comments as he does not understand anything about the functioning of the Congress,” Bhattacharya said.
Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also mocked the Congress, India Today reported. “Everything which was enacted by Rahul Gandhi was a big drama,” he said. “Gandhi family don’t want to part with the power in the Congress party. They want to retain control in the Congress party as Private Limited Company.”
“I am sure a day will come when there will be no stakeholders, no shareholders and only Gandhis will remain in the Congress party,” the minister claimed. Sarma was a member of the Congress before he quit the party and joined the BJP in 2015.
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