Sonia Gandhi emphasises on discipline, asks party leaders to focus on membership drive

"I would like to re-emphasise the paramount need for discipline and unity. What should matter to each and every one of us is the strengthening of the organisation. This must override personal ambitions. In this lies both collective and individual success," Gandhi said in her opening remarks at the meeting held at the party headquarters.

She emphasized on training programs for party workers and said, "We must fight the diabolical campaign of BJP/RSS ideologically. We must do so with conviction and expose their lies before the people if we are to win this battle."

She expressed unhappiness at the fact that the message being sent out from the top was not trickling down as wanted.

In the follow-up to the Oct 16 meeting, Sonia Gandhi said, "New members are the "lifeblood" of any movement", and asked the PCC presidents, general secretaries and in-charges to ensure "proper printing and distribution of forms for every ward and village".

Calling for training of party workers to counter the "BJP/RSS propaganda", the party president said focus on the groups worst-affected by government policies, like farmers, unemployed youth, and small and medium businesses.

"We must redouble our fight for those who are the victims of this government’s worst excesses: our farmers and farm labourers, our youth fighting for jobs and opportunities, small and medium scale businesses, our brothers, our sisters with particular focus on the deprived," she said.

"To make this promise truly meaningful, we must also make our organisation more representative of these cross-section of society," she said.

At the CWC just 10 days back, Congress decided to launch a massive membership drive, conduct training programs for party workers, and also decided the dates for the election of a party president.

The nation-wide Congress membership enrolment programme begins on Nov 1, 2021, and will run till Mar 31, 2022.

She also said that in the upcoming elections, the campaign should be finalised after widespread consultations with all stakeholders.

"Five states are going to the elections in the coming months. Congress party workers and leaders in these states are gearing up to take on these battles. Our campaign must be founded upon concrete policies and programmes emanating from widespread discussions with all sections of society," she said.

She also called upon the office bearers to focus on the membership campaign, and to identify and assign Congress leaders and office bearers who will go house to house, to enroll members in a transparent fashion.

She asked them also to ensure clear delineation of responsibilities at the state-, district-, block-, ward- and village-levels.

"The AICC releases important and detailed statements almost every day on issues facing the nation. But it is my experience that they do not percolate down to our grass root cadres at the block and district level. There are policy issues on which I find a lack of clarity and cohesion even amongst our state-level leaders," she said.

She asked the office bearers to train party workers to take on "disinformation campaigns at the behest of the BJP/RSS and "to fight it while up-holding and projecting the core Congress ideology."

The meeting comes days after Sonia Gandhi declared herself as a "full time" president amid criticism of the party not having an elected President and gave a clear message to all her critics inside and outside the party.