Failure is not permanent, says Sonia Gandhi after electoral defeat

New Delhi: After facing electoral reversals in state elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday sought to lift the morale of the party workers by asserting that “no failure is permanent”.

“A success achieved by discarding basic principles does not stay for long. If one sticks to principles, no failure is permanent,” Mrs Gandhi said, while addressing party workers at a programme to commemorate the 25th death anniversary of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Her remarks came against the backdrop of the Congress losing power in Assam and Kerala. Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh, after the May 19 verdict, had sought a “surgery” within the party, while claiming that enough introspection had been done in the past.

Later, taking a dig at the dynasty-driven Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the party will shrink in absence of stalwarts like Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi as it does not have leaders of that stature. “Where you have dynasties, dynasties become Albatross around your neck. Without the dynasty, you are irrelevant. With the dynasty, you stagnate. That is the problem of the Congress,” he said at an event organised by a news channel here.

Fielding a poser that there are examples of father-son duo in the BJP too, he spoke about a fundamental difference. “Two persons from the same family enter politics... One big national party is being owned by one family. It’s like proprietorship business and the authority to become Prime Minister belongs to that family only. This is the fundamental difference.”

Wherever there is a dynasty, leadership creation outside is “very difficult”. The Congress does not have even a clear leadership in states, the senior BJP leader added.