Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday cautioned the party leaders against “walking into irrelevant traps of the BJP” and asked them to focus on people’s issues and maintain ideological clarity. Addressing a press conference on the second day of Congress Working Committee in Hyderabad, party’s media and publicity department chief Pawan Khera said Gandhi spoke during the first meeting of the reconstituted CWC on Saturday and called on leaders to heed the voice of 'Bharat Mata' to raise people's issues.


"He (Gandhi) laid specific stress on the need to have ideological clarity. All of us emerged from that hall of the CWC in deep thought with absolute clarity. He warned us against walking into irrelevant traps of the BJP. These are not issues of the common man or woman or to any of us," Khera said, according to a PTI report. 


The Wayanad MP also asked the party leaders to remain focused on the actual reason why the Congress and each one of them were in politics – to ensure that they heed the voice of 'Bharat Mata' and translate that voice into actual issues, and wherever in government, into actual policies, he said.


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The remarks by Gandhi come amid a row over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin's comment on Sanatan Dharma which have been vehemently criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party. As per the PTI report, some leaders of the Congress party on Saturday called for a cautious approach on the Sanatan Dharma row and stressing that the party should not get drawn into the BJP’s agenda. 


The report also quoted sources as saying that some leaders including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh, were of the view that the party should stay away from such issues and not be drawn into it. 


“Rahul ji asked us 'whether you have clarity on ideology in your mind or not?'. Rahul ji's words were that Congress is not an organisation-based party, it is a movement which also has an organisation. It is the movement which drives the organisation and not the organisation that drives the movement,” Khera said at the press conference.