In an interview with the Press Trust of India (PTI) for the launch of his new book ‘A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon’, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh suggested the opposition to not “hijack” the people’s movement against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).
“We should maintain an arm’s length from these people’s protests. We should not try to politicise and hijack them. There are certain things a political party can do and certain things which a party can’t and should not do”, he said.
The Congress leader added that the solution to the revival of the Congress party lay in the “collective submergence” of individual egos and ambitions. Jairam Ramesh stated, “All of us have individual ambitions. But right now there should be only one ambition — the party’s revival, retention of the support base and return to power.”
The former Union Minister said that Congress has a long way to go before it could see the “light at the end of the tunnel.” Perhaps referring to the stand-off between Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Jyothriaditya Scindia or the major infighting within the Congres after the loss in Delhi Elections, he said that senior leaders must “mentor” juniors instead of “tormenting” them.
Read- The furore over CAA and NPR: A timeline of Congress’ contradictory stance
Jairam Ramesh conceded, “Fighting Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani is a different ball game from fighting master communicators Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.” He suggested the Congress politicians be watchful about what they speak in public.
The Union leader said that the Congress party has employed every “constitutional” and “democratic” move available at its disposal to oppose the CAA. He confessed that resolution passed in the Assemblies of Congress-ruled States against the CAA was more of a “political signal”. He said that NRC and NPR could not be conducted with taking the State Governments on board.