Achi news desk-
With the first of the seven phases of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections settled and dusted, Congress Women’s Wing Chief Elka Lamba in an exclusive conversation with Siddharth Bedi Verma of GPlusTalks about the changes you can expect from the grand old party if voted into power.
Also Read: Are Guwahati residents aware of what MCC is?
Earlier you were in Congress, but then you joined AAP and now you are back in Congress. So what is the difference between the two parties and how do you think Congress is better?
During my 30 year career in politics, I was in Congress for 25 years and AAP for 5 years. But my ideology was the same throughout. I started my career with Gandhi’s ideologies of truth, non-violence, independence, etc., and to this day I remain rooted in them.
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You and the Congress are members of the INDI alliance, how many seats do you think the bloc is going to win?
There are 26 political parties in the INDI Alliance. Our goal is to protect the constitution, protect democracy and the rights of the people. We also strive to protect the rights of farmers. It was promised that the farmers would be debt free but this has not happened so far. Suicides were supposed to stop but it still hasn’t. There has been injustice in the last ten years, and we want to give justice to the people. The unemployed youth were supposed to get 2 million jobs but where are they? 30 vacant government jobs. But now justice will be served, and those jobs will be filled. Petrol and gas prices have gone through the roof. The value of the rupee against the dollar has fallen. Earlier, the debt of our country stood at 50 lakhs, but today it stands at 207 lakhs in a span of only 10 years. The country has been facing the injustice of BJP for too long. We are not egotistical like BJP, we cannot just say we will win 400 votes. We are just moving forward hoping that with the change of power we can hopefully undo the injustice done by BJP. We believe we can stop BJP within 180 to 200 votes and form a government with a stable and stable base in 2024.
Do you think the INDI alliance will succeed?
The parties in the INDI alliance are one. Our goal is not to choose who will appoint the government or who will be the next prime minister. Our goal is to protect the constitution and provide justice to the people and for that we all work as one entity. From Bihar to Kerala to West Bengal, the INDI alliance is everywhere. Even if 13 Congress candidates are fighting against 13 from AAP and the rest are from BJP, we have given people two options and the one to win will be from INDI alliance. The new government will be formed by the INDI alliance because it is the citizens who want it.
What strategy will the Congress use to maintain its power in the South? And how will it take the seats in the east from BJP?
BJP is facing heavy losses in south so they are focusing on north. Recently, we defeated BJP in Karnataka and Telangana as well. Both these places have Congress governments now. The place from where BJP started its journey, the North East, is on fire today. Currently, PM Modi roams the streets of Guwahati but cannot dare to enter Manipur. He does not even dare to enter Arunachal Pradesh because there questions arise whether China after entering Ladakh, has entered Arunachal or not. Modi cannot answer their questions.
Currently, the CM of Delhi is facing corruption charges. Do you think his arrest will affect the Lok Sabha elections?
They put the elected Jharkhand CM in jail. They put Delhi CM in jail between elections. It seems that these are not the actions of a party that won 400+ votes. These actions will affect BJP because the accused should be tried and proven guilty according to law, but in this case, the accused is put in jail without a proper trial. Sisodia (Manish Sisodia, AAP leader) has been in jail since a year. Soon the UP and Delhi elections will be over and this issue will not be a problem anymore. In reality, 24 people were arrested in ED cases. 22 people joined BJP. The names of 22 people have been cleared and released, ranging from Ajit Pawan to Narayan Ran. They were washed in Moody’s washing machine and thus their names came out clear.
What factors will sway people in favor of Meera Borthkur, even though Guwahati has been under BJP since last 15 years?
Since the last 15 years, right? And who was before that? Congress, right? First people gave Congress a chance and after 15 years, they will realize what they got from BJP. People have realized that this is not the Atal-Advani BJP, it is the corrupt Modi-Shah BJP. From misusing ED, IRS, to bringing corrupt people into the party, they did it all. When the public realized this, they gave up the BJP ideology and went back to following Gandhi’s ideology.
What is in the Congress manifesto that makes it better than the BJP’s?
In my opinion there is no comparison between the two. They created one between four walls while we traveled ten thousand km, sat with Dalits, farmers and tribals. Only then was the Congress manifesto brought up. And Prime Minister Modi was so shocked that without looking at our content, he said it was a Muslim League manifesto, even though the word ‘Muslim ‘ It was not mentioned even once. There are pictures that describe the unity of all religions. There are plans to build better roads, to provide an annual sum of 1 lakh to women belonging to lower economic classes, to stop farmers from committing suicide and to free them from all their debts .
Congress provides 50% reservation in government jobs for women. Do you think Congress itself ever underrepresents women?
In every sector of this country, women have been and still are underrepresented. Our government approved 33% reservation for women, and if these laws had been enacted 10 years ago, many of our sisters would have been represented, but BJP prevented this from happening. The law exists, but it has not yet entered into force. They take away women’s rights. Over 250 women candidates led by Priyanka Gandhi got the ticket in UP. BJP has also given the ticket to men like Ram Dollar, who have cases of sex crimes against minors.
PM Modi said that the Congress is the head of the “tukda-tukda” gang. What do you think about it?
Do you think someone who promises 400+ seats will utter words like ‘Muslim League, tukde-tukde gang’? Comment on what someone ate. When the BJP government was in Karnataka, they chose what clothes our girls would wear. They even attacked languages ​​spoken in Karnataka. They attack things like this, which is also an attack on the country’s constitution. PM can’t find words for important issues like unemployment, China crossing our border, justice for farmers, etc. so he tries to create distractions like CAA, NRC, love jihad, and what not. Congress mentioned in its manifesto that it would recognize the LGBT union if elected.
So what will Congress do in urban areas to recognize this union?
We came from the ages of sati prata and some other social issues. To give prominence to these issues and create a sense of acceptance, we will talk about them and bring a sense of agreement among the people. Be it man or woman or third gender or even modern concepts like life-in, man likes man or women love women, we give thought to such things.
