MATHURA: Making an emotional speech that sought to blend corporate mantras with family values of dialogue and discussion — and included a sharp attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi — Rahul Gandhi on Monday tried to lift the flagging morale of Uttar Pradesh’s Congresspersons ahead of the 2017 assembly polls.

“Modi is damaging himself more than we can by coming together,” he said while addressing the Chintan Shivir of the UP Congress Committee. “He is on a downward slope. This is our time to fight. He came and made promises, and left each one unfulfilled — of Rs 15 lakh in bank accounts [after recovering] black money, minimum support price for farmers, and ‘one rank one pension’ to soldiers. When I travel in states now, people don’t just criticize him; they abuse Modi. There are no ‘achhe din’.”

The Congress vice-president also took potshots at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. “The Congress is not like the RSS, where Bhagwat says something, people salute and follow,” he said. “In the Congress, there is space for multiple opinions and for dialogue. We must hold more dialogue and discussions to resolve our difference and strengthen ourselves.”

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Rahul pledged to remain available for party activities whenever he was needed. He said the Congress might be the fourth party in UP in terms of numerical strength, but was the leading ideology among parties.

He doled out corporate gyan to Congressmen after an unscheduled visit to Mathura ’s Banke Bihari temple. Asserting the party’s secular image, Rahul narrated the story of Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who resurrected the company’s flagging fortunes by following a lesson he had learnt as a youngster. “Dialogue, in an amicable environment, can bring the best out of even the most conflicting situations,” he said.

Rahul said he felt bad that the Congress ideology, one that helped build the nation, had weakened in UP, the heart of the country. The Amethi MP asked his UP colleagues to hit the streets and step up the fight like he had on the land bill. He said the day the Congress ideology took root in UP, the party would automatically make a comeback in India.

Referring to his own change of heart in recent months, where he had begun to see party workers and functionaries as family rather than as a Congress army of men and women, Rahul said: “In a family, there is always space for dialogue, and also for difference of opinion. We want a peaceful, fair family, but no one can be thrown out for having a difference of opinion.”

Remembering former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and the lessons he had learnt from him, the Congress vice-president said: “When I was younger, sometimes I would listen to Papa and sometimes not. But there was always a dialogue. In an army, you can be ousted for a having a conflicting opinion, but in a family you shift responsibilities, harness every individual’s energy and channel it in the right direction. This is what we must also do to spread our ideology.”

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