Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that his party would get 135 seats in assembly elections of Gujarat in 2022.
Rahul was on a day-long visit of the state to analyse the results and address party workers. He also met leaders and party workers from various zones of the state.
The Congress president, who visited Gujarat for the first time after taking over the reins of the party, said that though they lost the election, actually they had won. “It is a reality,” he said.
Rahul alleged that the BJP had won the elections with anger. BJP had everything—money, police, chief ministers of various states and industrialists—by its side while the Congress had only truth by its side, he said.
Rahul, who flew into the Ahmedabad after visiting the Somnath Temple again, told the elected representatives that they are party's ambassadors and that the people are seeing how they work. They see that you fight for their issues and do not go back, he added.
Exhorting party MLAs and other party workers to continue to fight, he feared that in the coming five years, the BJP would work only for industrialists. We will have to protect the interests of youth, women and farmers, he said.
Stressing that the Congress and its workers made the BJP leaders sweat in this election, Rahul claimed that the BJP was cornered in the state. Three to four months ago there were talks whether the Congress would be able to fight the elections or not, but the party has shown that if it stood up and fought unitedly with ideology, it does not lose, he added.
Appreciating the efforts of partymen, he said that they fought nicely and the AICC also fought well. He, however, accepted that there were a couple of mistakes in ticket distribution. Otherwise it was 'broadly right', Rahul said.
Based on the feedback he received after meeting district party presidents and Congressmen, who contested elections, Rahul said that 90 per cent of the party men remained with the party. However, there were 5 to 10 per cent who did not help the Congress. Amid loud applause, he said that the party would take action against them. “This leadership will run Gujarat after five years,” he said. The newly elected Congress president gave clear indication that anti-party activities won't be tolerated.
The main reason, he said, for the Congress to lose election was the wrong propaganda by the BJP in the last 20 years. Rahul said that Congress can win if it believes that it would win. “You believed 70 per cent, but did not believe cent per cent,” he said, adding that now you have seen the results and the difference is of only 10 seats. Now Gujarat Congress has got the confidence, he observed.
Rahul urged the partymen to fight at every level and not go “an inch back”.
He said that he congratulates the BJP on forming the government. “They (the BJP) will work for five years and we will play the role of the opposition,” he said.
Earlier, senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel said that the party would have to start working for the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 from now onwards. “We have to get a minimum of 20 seats,” he urged. In the 2014 LS elections, the BJP had swept all the 26 seats from Gujarat.
He credited Rahul and the partymen for this moral victory of the party.
In the 182-member assembly, the Congress won 77 seats, the highest since 1985.
