Congress politician Shashi Tharoor has advocated for reducing the term of service for state presidents in the party and has asked for the party to be revitalised and re-energized in order to compete with the BJP in the 2024 general elections. Denying rumours that he could withdraw from the presidential contest due to weak backing, Tharoor said he was still in the running and was getting support from a variety of sources.
‘My message is to reenergize the party, empower its members, decentralise power, and stay in touch with the general public’. In his meeting with the media on Thursday at Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the Congress state headquarters, Tharoor said, ‘I believe this would make Congress politically fit to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP in the 2024 general election’.
Asserting his admiration and respect for party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge, Tharoor claimed that the race was amicable and not ideological because both candidates were members of the same party and had different strategies for taking on the BJP. ‘We must revamp the way our party runs. We need to recruit young people into the party and give them genuine power’. When unveiling his election platform, he said, ‘At the same time, we should show more respect to long-serving and diligent karyakartas’.
The manifesto’s ten key points include decentralising power, strengthening the party at the booth level, using general secretaries as state in-charges while also using them for nation-building initiatives, and putting state presidents’ decisions in their hands while also limiting their terms in office. ‘ We must reaffirm the Congress’ fundamental beliefs. We are the inclusive party of India; we support equal rights and are opposed to persecution. We must repeat the notion for which we battled and stood,’ he stated.
He has pledged to reestablish institutions like the parliamentary board if elected president. According to Tharoor, the manifesto emphasises the need for the Congress to recommit to the social work ethos. The Thiruvananthapuram MP stated, ‘The party is not a machine to fight elections once every five years, but it should live alongside and serve the people… we should connect with the people and work with them’.
He asserted that the importance of having a strong connection to the populace was demonstrated by party leader Rahul Gandhi’s successful Bharat Jodo Yatra. Tharoor added that he was receiving a tonne of feedback from regular party members, particularly the younger ones. He expressed his satisfaction at the youth, who make up the bulk of our country’s population and are its future, supporting him in the polls. ‘ Sixty-five percent of our population is under the age of 35. This is a young India, it’s their country,’ he continued.
‘I want the Congress party to represent the new India. Like (former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded in starting the telecom and IT revolution 40 years ago, I want to stand in for the goals, desires, and expectations of young India. To take advantage of the potential presented to young India, we must now move forward as well. The young people’s support makes me very happy’, he remarked. In response to a query, Tharoor stated that the party had a productive coalition with the DMK in Tamil Nadu and that it had positive relations with the state administration.
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