Congress has to rediscover street politics to resurrect: Jairam Ramesh

An electorally-battered Congress has to rediscover street and agitational politics to resurrect itself, taking the drubbing it received in the Lok Sabha elections as an opportunity to restructure and focus on the new generation, says senior leader Jairam Ramesh.

The former Union Minister also said that there is no uncertainty over Rahul Gandhi stepping into the shoes of his mother to become Congress President which is only a matter of time.

"Congress is an old organisation. It's been around and it has been in power for a long time. It has to (now) rediscover agitational politics. Congress has been a party of governance for a long time."

"Now, it finds itself in a position where it has to rediscover for itself, for street politics, agitational politics. It has to rediscover the politics of kisans for example. So, I think that's going to be a big challenge for us," Ramesh told PTI in an interview here.

Ramesh who held the vital Rural Development and Environment portfolios in the UPA government, noted that restructuring rarely takes place when parties are in power, and it takes place when they are out of power.

"And here is an opportunity for us and the Land Acquisition Amendments Bill is a sort of 'sanjeevini' (elixir) for us, like Chikmagalur (from where Indira Gandhi was elected to Lok Sabha in a by-election) was the 'sanjeevini' for the Congress in 1978," he said.

Ramesh said Rahul Gandhi would become Congress President "sooner or later" and there is no other contender for the post.

"There is no uncertainty (over Rahul becoming Congress President). There is uncertainty in some other candidate for Congress President. There is only one (Rahul Gandhi).

"The day Congress President decides to step down, there is only one Vice-President, there are no two Vice-Presidents in the Congress party. Question is on timing...When he is going to...And the modality," he said.