Party is above individuals, Sonia’s message to Congressmen

NEW DELHI - Urging partymen to overcome differences for the sake of unity, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Sunday said that all partymen should ensure that they work as a team and personal differences should not jeopardise the party.

“We must ensure our party’s capacity to work as a team and ensure we don’t put our personal differences in the way of party unity,” Gandhi said in a strong message at the party’s 83rd plenary at Burari.

She added that there would be differences and she also understood the personal ambitions of people, but these should not jeopardise the party. “The party is above the individual,” she said as she ended her address.

Her comments come in the wake of increasing instances of senior party leaders speaking in different tunes on important matters, or voicing public disapproval of any policy decision.

Party spokesperson Digvijay Singh had raised a controversy when he criticised Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s handling of the Maoist insurgency, and senior leader Mani Shankar Aiyar had publicly criticised the holding of the Commonwealth Games. Aiyar had said he disapproved of the huge money being spent on the event and he would be happy if the Games were disrupted.