While calling for an organisational restructuring of the party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge warned Thursday that the BJP and RSS had not given up their pursuit of changing the Constitution.
At the extended meeting of the CWC in Karnataka’s Belagavi, to commemorate 100 years since Mahatma Gandhi became president of the Indian National Congress, Kharge said everyone in the party was proud to inherit the legacy of the Mahatma.
He said that while Gandhi was the Congress chief for just one year, he set such high standards that it is impossible for anyone to match them.
Kharge also accused Union Minister Amit Shah of making “insulting remarks about Dr Babasahab Ambedkar”. He said there was widespread anger among people against the remarks. The Congress president declared that 2025 would be “the year of strengthening of the party and making it stronger”.
Referring to the 1924 Belagavi session of the Congress, Kharge said it set new standards and milestones. “We must honour the legacy of Gandhi, Nehru, and Ambedkar, while forging ahead with courage and conviction. This Nava Satyagraha meeting is a call to action to defend truth, justice, and constitutional values,” he added.
Kharge also said that BJP leaders “spread lies that the Congress mistreated Babasaheb Ambedkar”.
“It was the Congress government, led by Mrs Indira Gandhi, which had erected a big statue of Babasaheb in Parliament in 1967,” he said.
Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who couldn’t attend the CWC meeting on Thursday, sent a note to party leaders, saying that Mahatma Gandhi’s “legacy is under threat from those in power in New Delhi and the ideologies and institutions that have nurtured them”.
“Today, we rededicate ourselves to preserve, protect and promote the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. He has been and will continue to be the fundamental source of our inspiration. It was he who moulded and guided all our remarkable galaxy of leaders of that generation,” she said in her note.
She also decried “organisations that never fought for our freedom”. “They opposed Mahatma Gandhi bitterly. They created a toxic atmosphere that led to his assassination. They glorify his killers,” she said.
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