Shashi Tharoor said that Congress has run the country well and people have experienced it. (file)
Mumbai:
Congress Presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said the Gandhi family is blessing him and his rival Mallikarjun Kharge and he has no prejudice towards either of them.
Speaking to the media after meeting party functionaries at the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee office in Mumbai, the former diplomat also said that his aim was to strengthen the Congress ahead of the 2024 elections.
“The Gandhi family is blessing me and Kharge ji. Because we are fighting elections to strengthen the party,” he said.
Mr T Haroor dismissed speculation that the ongoing electoral battle with Kharge was between an official candidate (Kharge) and an unofficial one (himself), as claimed by some leaders.
“My interactions with the Gandhi family have assured me that they have no prejudice against me or Kharge,” he said.
Tharoor said the BJP should start preparing to be part of the opposition as they will have to sit there after the 2024 elections.
“Our party needs change and I think I am the one who will be the catalyst of change,” Tharoor said.
He said that the Congress has run the country well and has experienced the people in the party.
“We need to win the trust of voters,” he said during a delegate outreach program at the state headquarters of the Congress in Mumbai.
Congress state unit president Nana Patole was not present in the meeting.
When asked about Patole’s absence, Tharoor said, “I spoke to Patole ji and he told me about my prior commitment. I am not complaining at all.”
Members of the All India Professional Congress greeted Tharoor at Tilak Bhawan. Former Lok Sabha MP Priya Dutt and former Rajya Sabha MP Bhalchandra Mungekar were also present.
Mr Tharoor visited Chaityabhoomi, BR Ambedkar’s cremation ground, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial and Siddhivinayak Temple at Shivaji Park, before reaching Tilak Bhawan, the state Congress headquarters.
Mr Tharoor later also issued a video appeal on Twitter to the over 9,000 state Congress representatives who will vote in the organizational election.
In his video appeal, he said, “In the Indian National Congress we are facing a big challenge. The challenge to revive our party and make it fit with the aim of fighting the formidable BJP in the 2024 elections.”
“The challenge becomes all the more important from the fact that our party is giving the country an example of internal party democracy which no other party has been able to do,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor said Congress President Sonia Gandhi, former party president Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have insisted that they welcome the election to strengthen the Congress and believe that it will attract the Janata Party. Will be The spirit he is fighting with.
He said that in his manifesto he has introduced several ideas to strengthen the party, including decentralization of power, empowering the workers so that they can reach all levels of decision making, widening the participation in the party and all To empower workers. ,
The idea is to restore the institutions that were provided for in the party’s constitution but have become unusable and to win back the voters of the party’s defeat in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
He urged delegates to vote for him on October 17, saying “if not now, when are we going to do it”.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)