Activists say Cong has failed to present an alternative to BJP

Human rights activists and social workers today flayed the Congress for ceding space to the BJP during a seminar on Nehruvian ideals and suggested that the party's failure to present an alternative has played a role behind the rise in "intolerance".
The remarks were made in the presence of senior Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor, Ahmed Patel and Mukul Wasnik on the first day of the two-day seminar 'No Peace Without Freedom, No Freedom Without Peace - Securing Nehru's Vision and India's Future' here.
Amnesty India's executive director Aakar Patel said while "intolerance" was not unique to India, these impulses need to be pacified. "By offering very clear alternatives to this nastiness. We don't have that clear choice at the moment."

"Gujarat you (Congress) haven't won in 25 years, Madhya Pradesh in 20 years, Chhattisgarh in 15 years, you are the fourth biggest party in Bihar, UP. The Congress today is speaking of very grand things but can't fill an audience in Delhi with such grandiose," Patel said.
Speaking on the theme 'Democracy', Tharoor hailed Jawaharlal Nehru for laying the foundation of a democratic polity in the absence of which, he said, "Narendra Modi would not have been the Prime Minister."
"His (Nehru's) instincts remained always that of a democrat. Had he wanted he could have gone the way of many other post-colonial leaders. He wanted people to understand that institutions are greater than individuals," Tharoor said.

Tharoor said due to a weak opposition, "weaker than what it is now", Nehru could have ridden roughshod over the Chief Ministers as has "happened in the later years". He treated the states with due respect and reverence instead, Tharoor said.

Women and Trade rights activist Sharda Sathe underscored the need to engage in dialogue with all sections of the society instead of holding such discussion inside "auditoriums" involving the elite section.
"Who will explain to secularism to whom here? What is the point? Instead such discussions should be held out on the streets. No point in learning multiple definitions of terms such as democracy," Sathe said.

Social activist Nikhil Dey, who also spoke on the theme, said icons such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru aren't just the legacy of the Congress party, "they are my legacy too".
He highlighted the importance of protecting and strengthening laws such as RTI, MGNREGA, Forest Rights Act, Food Security Act saying that their was no democracy "without equality".