New Delhi: On a day when the news broke out that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has taken leave of absence for a few weeks to reflect upon the string of losses of his party, outspoken Congress member Sandeep Dikshit told NDTV that the remedy could well be for the partymen to speak at the right fora.
"Our inability to speak out at the right fora has done us in, we should be able to speak our mind within our party," Mr Dikshit told NDTV. In the recent past, Mr Dikshit himself has been quite critical of the party leadership and in an interview to Press Trust of India, he had claimed that the party drew a blank in the Delhi polls since most of its leaders were "moving in SUVs wearing Ray Ban glasses without any connect to the people on the ground."
Was this a reference to Rahul Gandhi? "No that will be unfair. I just wanted to make a symbolic representation. We are all responsible for not speaking out. There was a disconnect between how our government perceived things and what people felt. When subsidised gas cylinders were being cut to nine per year from 12, we should have spoken out," says Mr Dikshit.
On being asked if such out-of-turn comments would have attracted disciplinary action, Mr Dikshit said, "If you are true Congressman and believe in the ideology, you will not think about such things. Your party is more important than you."