Congress needs to bring changes within party, says Sonia Gandhi at Chintan Shivir

Sonia said the transformation of the Congress is the most fundamental issue and the party's revival is possible only through collective efforts

Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary action, Congress president Sonia Gandhi exhorted workers and leaders on Friday, as the party kickstarted its three-day ‘Chintan Shivir’ here to rejuvenate the party organisation and make it battle-ready for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

If she had a blunt message to leaders that the party will have to change its style of functioning, Sonia also did not let the heat on the Union government when she told the meeting that "an ever so eloquent" Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in "utter silence" when the country need a healing touch the most.

Addressing the opening session of the brainstorming session that comes as the party faced a series of backlash from voters in various states, she repeated her remarks at the Congress Working Committee earlier this week when she asked leaders to keep the organisation above their personal aspirations and pack back their debt to the party.

Also Read | Sonia Gandhi targets PM Modi at Congress's Chintan Shivir, says minorities being 'brutalised'

She said the transformation of the Congress is the most fundamental issue and the party's revival is possible only through collective efforts.

"Collective efforts will not be deferred. This Shivir is the start of the journey...Circumstances before our organisation are unprecedented. Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary action. I am fully alert to this. The organisation has to bring changes within itself, not just to stay alive but to move forward. We are in dire need of improvement and changing strategy," Sonia said.

Urging the around 430 delegates to deliberate issues with an "open mind", she said, "we are not oblivious to the recent failures nor are we oblivious to the struggle we have to undertake to win. We are not unaware of the expectations of the people."

Targeting the Modi government, she said it has become "abundantly and most painfully clear" what Modi and his colleagues "really mean by their frequently-used slogan 'maximum governance minimum government'."

She said it meant keeping the country in a "state of permanent polarisation, compelling people to live in a constant state of fear and insecurity. It means viciously targeting, victimising and often brutalising minorities who are an integral part of our society and equal citizens of our republic".

Sonia was combative in her attack on the government as she said the Modi government was "viciously targeting, victimising and often brutalising minorities who are an integral part of our society and are equal citizens of our republic".

"It means using our society's age-old pluralities to divide us and subverting the carefully nurtured idea of unity and diversity. It means threatening and intimidating political opponents, maligning their reputation, jailing them on flimsy pretexts and misusing investigative agencies," she added.

Sonia was also critical of the Modi government's "wholesale reinvention of history", constant denigration of its leaders, especially Jawaharlal Nehru and the "systematic move to distort, deny and destroy their contributions, their achievements and their sacrifices". "It means glorifying the killers of Mahatma Gandhi," the Congress chief said.

Her short speech in English and Hindi also referred to the use of "fear" to make bureaucracy, corporate India, sections of the civil society and the media "fall in line".