‘Mahaul’ in our favour, don’t be complacent, over confident: Sonia Gandhi to party on upcoming polls

New Delhi: With Assembly polls in key states coming up, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday said the “mahaul (public mood)” is in the party’s favour but cautioned against complacency and over confidence after the goodwill generated for it in the Lok Sabha elections.

Gandhi claimed that the Modi government had not drawn the right lessons from “their significant decline” in the Lok Sabha elections and alleged that it was persisting with its policy of “dividing communities and spreading

an atmosphere of fear and animosity”.

“Fortunately, the Supreme Court intervened at the right time,” she said in an apparent reference to the stay on the orders passed by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand government asking eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the name of owners.

“But this can only be a temporary respite. Look at how the rules have been suddenly changed to permit the bureaucracy to participate in the activities of the RSS. It calls itself a cultural organisation but the whole world knows that it is the BJP’s political and ideological base,” Gandhi said.

Noting that elections will be held in four states, she urged party leaders to sustain the momentum and goodwill that had been generated for the party in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We must not become complacent and over confident. The ‘mahaul’ does favour us, but we have to work unitedly with a sense of purpose. I dare say that if we perform well, reflecting the trend that we witnessed in the Lok Sabha elections, national politics will undergo a transformation,” Sonia Gandhi said.

The former Congress president’s remarks come ahead of Assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand as also the possibility of elections in Jammu and Kashmir this year.

She also slammed the Union Budget, saying that the pressing demands of farmers and youth in particular, have been totally ignored.

Allocations in a number of vital sectors have not done justice to the tasks required to be fulfilled, she said.