“If we are explicitly or implicitly willing to compromise with our principles to regain power we might as well pack up our bags,” Mr Khurshid said.
Reacting to Kapil Sibal and other critics within the party who have been pushing for a change in leadership, Congress leader Salman Khurshid called them “doubting Thomases” who suffer “periodic pangs of anxiety”. Starting long FB post with Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s couplet, Khurshid urged the critics to look within themselves for “flaws”, one of which, he indicated, could be a tendency to look for “short cuts”.
“If the mood of the electorate is resistant to the liberal values we have espoused… we should be prepared for a long struggle rather than look for short cuts to get back into power,” Khurshid said, questioning if the critics were “bad workmen quarrelling with their tools”.
“Being excluded from power is not to be casually embraced in public life but if it is the result of principled politics it should be accepted with honour… If we are explicitly or implicitly willing to compromise with our principles to regain power we might as well pack up our bags,” Mr Khurshid said.
Mr Khurshid, without naming Kapil Sibal, said: “while periodic re-appraisal and re-writing of strategy and logistics” are required, they cannot be conducted on media so that adversaries can “check mate it promptly”.
“The favourite panacea of doubting Thomases, introspection and collective leadership, might do no collateral damage but is a bit over estimated,” the Congress leader added.
Mr Sibal, in an interview to the Indian Express, had said he had been forced to go public with his views as “there has been no dialogue and there seems to be no effort for a dialogue by the leadership”.
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