Rahul Gandhi
Congress President Rahul Gandhi addressed the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting on Saturday at Parliament House.
Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji; Smt. Sonia Ji; senior leaders, friends and colleagues – I would like to welcome you all here today. You fought a very good election, obviously, because the people who won the Lok Sabha this time need to understand exactly what they fought. You are probably the first people in this country’s independent history, who have fought an election not against a political party but against every single institution in this country. There is not one institution that did not fight you and tried to stop you from coming into the Lok Sabha and you fought every single one of those institutions and you forced your way into the Lok Sabha. And that is something you should be extremely proud of .
Now I see some faces who helped us in the last Lok Sabha. Some fallen warriors, who stood for the Congress Party when we had 45 Members. When we had 45 Members last time, I felt it is going to be really a tough job. I felt that the BJP has 282, we are 45. What we are going to do with 45 but I must tell you very quickly within a couple of weeks I realized that 45 Congress Members are enough to take on 282 BJP Members. So, I am very confident that this time we have 52 – we are 52 Members and I guarantee you, it does not matter what institutions are standing against these 52 Members. It does not matter who is standing against these 52 Members. These 52 Members are going to fight the BJP every single inch, without giving this much and that applies to the Members from Rajya Sabha as well.
You have to first understand, who you are. If you are going to fight, who you are fighting for? You are fighting for the constitution of this country, that is who you are, you are fighting for the right of every single individual in this country regardless of the skin colour, regardless of his religion, regardless of his gender, regardless of his State. That is, what you are fighting for. And, who is fighting against you, you have to understand that also. Hatred, cowardice and anger are fighting against you. Lack of confidence, lack of self-belief is fighting against you.
The people who are opposing us in Parliament House, they use hatred; they use anger to fight us. And as I said throughout the election, there is only one way to fight hatred and anger. There is no other way and that is the love and the affection and the compassion of the Congress Party. That is why the BJP sits and says that we want Congress-Mukt Bharat because without Congress they have free run and no one to counter them. There is no opposition against the BJP other than the love and the compassion, the affection of the Congress Party. And that is what you have to understand. Every single one of you, it is going to be, you are going to enjoy yourself, you are going to shout little more than usual. You are going to have to be little more aggressive. Last time, if the Speaker used to give us 5 Minutes but this time it may be two minutes, but in those two minutes, we will put forth what the Congress Party believes, we will put forth our defence of the constitution.
I would be quite happy if some of those old faces would have won the election because I must say that there were 5-10 people in the last Lok Sabha who gave us tremendous support. I am sorry that they are not here today with us. But they are ideologically with us even though they are standing outside the House; for me, they are standing with us inside the Lok Sabha.
I would also like to thank all the Congress workers who fought for this idea, who defended this idea and as Ex President said it is an opportunity for us to introspect, to look inwards, to try and see as to what went wrong, to try to rejuvenate ourselves. I have no doubt that the Congress Party is going to rejuvenate. I have to thank all of you specially the seniors who are here. You have given a tremendous service in fighting for the constitution and now you are fighting every single institution. There is no institution that is going to support you in this country, not one is going to support you. It is like during the British period, when not a single institution supported the Congress Party yet we fought and won and we are going to do it again.
Thank you very much
