AHMEDABAD: Less than a month ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress on Tuesday held a meeting of its highest decision-making body, Congress Working Committee (CWC) here in which the party resolved to defeat the "RSS and BJPs ideology of fascism, hatred, anger and divisiveness".


"On the anniversary of Gandhi Ji's historic Dandi March, the Congress Working Committee in Ahmedabad, resolved to defeat the RSS, BJP ideology of fascism, hatred, anger and divisiveness. No sacrifice is too great in this endeavour, no effort too little, this battle will be won," party president Rahul Gandhi said.

The CWC also authorised Gandhi to finalise alliances in key states with other like-minded parties in order to defeat the BJP.

Briefing reporters after the CWC meeting, Congress leader Anand Sharma accused the Modi government of failing to fulfill its promises and going against the ideals of the Constitution.

"There are attempts to project a different picture of India as against the ideals on which the Constitution was formed. Constitutional rights are being constantly violated," he said.

He said the meeting, attended by top party leaders including party chief Rahul Gandhi, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, adopted a political resolution.

"Congress expresses its strong disappointment that the Prime Minister is cynically exploiting the issue of national security, on which we are all united, to divert attention from his colossal failures, bogus claims and persistent falsehoods," the resolution said.

The Congress said the five years of Modi-BJP government has been a period of false promises and betrayal of people's trust and confidence.

"This government has been a failure on all fronts and has inflicted pain and misery on the people through its reckless decisions of demonetisation and hasty imposition of a flawed GST," it said.

It said demonetization and GST disrupted the economy, trade and industry, led to closure of lakhs of factories and tens of millions of workers lost their jobs and livelihood.

"The unprecedented joblessness, agrarian crisis and distress of farmers and agricultural laborers are issues of grave national concern. The Modi government is guilty of monumental mismanagement of the Indian economy. National savings and investments have sharply declined.

"Banks are burdened with NPAs and credit off-take of the industry has reached a record low. Exports are stagnant and industrial production has been falling continuously notwithstanding Government's boastful and misleading claims, it said.

It stated that during the BJP-led NDA rule there's an atmosphere of fear, insecurity prevalant particularly among women, students, academics, and business community. "Deliberate attacks are being made on constitutional and other safeguards for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, OBCs and minorities," it said.

The meeting, being held in the home state of Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi, also reviewed party's poll preparedness in view of the coming Lok Sabha elections.

It is the first CWC meeting being attended by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was earlier this year appointed general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. During the meeting, Priyanka said the Congress will come to power in the Centre in the upcoming elections.