Q. Why do you think the Congress is well-placed in the coming assembly elections in Gujarat?
It will be wrong to extrapolate the results of elections in other states to Gujarat. Every state has a different set of issues. Our main effort will be to first understand the ground situation in Gujarat, and based on that design our campaign and our manifesto and also decide our candidates. We will do better than the previous election in which we came close to defeating the BJP. We got 77 seats in 2017. This time, we aim to get more than 92 seats and form the next government.
Q. So you are quite confident about the Congress’s prospects in Gujarat.
The situation in the state does favour us. Last time, only one community was upset with the government. Now, every section of the society is angry with them. However, there could be an attempt by the ruling side to bring in another party to try and cut our votes.
Q. Factionalism is said to be the undoing of the Congress in Punjab. It is there in the Gujarat Congress, too.
We should focus on two or three faces. To focus on just one face is risky. These faces will reach out to different communities and social strata so that no one feels left out.
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Q. Should candidates not be decided well in advance?
In a BJP-ruled state, if we show our cards early by announcing our candidates in advance, the establishment then begins to harass them by getting them trapped in cases or threatening them, or tries to lure them.
Q. How big a challenge is the AAP in Gujarat?
One needs to ask a very important question about the AAP: how did it win Punjab and fail to win a single seat in Uttarakhand? And in Goa, it only helped in the Congress’s defeat. It could not defeat the BJP in Goa. There is a big conspiracy behind this. I do not want to elaborate on that, because it will be part of our poll strategy. We will find ways to ensure our voters do not get misled.
Q. Critics of the party say that there is a leadership crisis in the Congress.
The central leadership cannot be blamed for everything that goes wrong. They are supposed to entrust the state units with tasks and give them the freedom to carry these out. The state leadership has to fulfil the mandate and achieve results. If the state leadership fails, how can Priyanka ji or Rahul ji be held responsible for that?