Strategy to counter BJP’s nationalism
In Raipur itself, a strategy was chalked out to run the movement across the country on the Adani issue and it was also announced in a hurry. The Adani issue remained at the core of the party’s agenda throughout the convention. At the same time, the party also discussed in detail in the conference to counter the nationalism of BJP. In the Raipur session, the soft attitude of the Congress towards opposition unity was also visible. Especially unlike last year’s Jaipur Chintan Shivir, this time almost all the leaders talked about opposition unity against BJP. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge spoke on this issue and agreed that there is a need for opposition unity, while Priyanka Gandhi also mentioned about opposition unity in her speech. In fact, the Congress did not want to send a message from its highest forum that it was not in favor of opposition unity. Neither wanted to show that she is not serious in this direction.
Opposition unity discussed
The talk on opposition unity in the Congress session came up at a time when for the last few days, all the regional parties have asked the Congress to take initiative for this. Interestingly, on February 25, when the Congress session was going on in Raipur, Nitish Kumar had asked the Congress to take the initiative at the Grand Alliance rally in Purnia in Bihar. It may be known that last year, at the Nav Sankalp Shivir of Congress in Udaipur, while enumerating the limitations of regional parties, Rahul Gandhi had said that Congress is the only one in the country which can fight BJP and Sangh.
There was a sharp reaction to Rahul’s statement
Rahul said that regional parties have their place, but they do not have any ideology. BJP also knows that the interests of regional parties are regional, so they cannot defeat them. On this statement of Rahul, there were sharp comments from all the regional parties from SP, RJD, JMM to National Conference and CPM. But this time in Raipur, the Congress has been successful in sending a message to other regional parties that it is ready to take the initiative for opposition unity, but it will play an important role in deciding its contours.