Congress’ turnaround started with Gujarat polls, will continue: Ramesh

Congress’ turnaround started with Gujarat polls, will continue: Ramesh

Pune: “The turnaround for the Congress party started with Gujarat assembly polls of 2017 when the party did very well in the state. It continued with the Congress swinging into quick action to capture power in Karnataka and this peaked with the recent results of assembly polls in the Hindi heartland. This trend will continue,” said former Union minister and senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh in Pune.

Jairam Ramesh visited Sakal office on Monday for a special chat with journalists and was present for the publication of the Marathi version of his book Nisargayatri  Indira Gandhi at Tilak Smarak Mandir in Pune. The book in Marathi has been published by Sakal Media Group. Senior environmentalist Madhav Gadgil was also present at the inauguration.

Jairam Ramesh spoke on a variety of subjects including the political prospects for his party.

“We have done well in the past few months but we don’t want to get complacent. Remember we have done really well only in Chhattisgarh. In other states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, we are only marginally ahead of the BJP so there is still scope to work harder,” Ramesh said.

“Our agenda should not be just to oust Modi because if we have only that agenda then it will sound similar to opposition getting together against Indira Gandhi,” Ramesh Added.

“We have to work on farmers’ agenda, lack of employment generation and tax terrorism that is being sensed by traders and businessmen,” Ramesh added.

“The BJP has been very good at marketing themselves as many of our welfare schemes such as Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojana were taken ahead by the BJP government with catchy names such as Soubhagya Yojana. The BJP has been good at renaming most of our welfare schemes and marketing it well and claiming credit for it. But farmers’ distress and unemployment are huge issues that the ruling party cannot escape from,” said Ramesh.  “The Congress party has earlier stressed on employment security. We will now talk of income security. We have to focus on farmers’ agenda and rural distress. We expect that the upcoming interim budget will be very populist and may give promises to farmers but we have to see how it gets implemented July 2019 onwards,” Ramesh added. 

The book ‘Nisargayatri Indira Gandhi’ has been published in Marathi by Sakal Media Group. It is translated by senior journalist Madhav Gokhale. Deepali Chowdhary is the editor of the translated book.

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