No failure permanent, stick to principles

Seeking to lift the party's morale after the electoral debacle, Congress President Sonia Gandhi yesterday asserted 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," Sonia said addressing party workers at a programme to commemorate the 25th death anniversary of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Congress is reeling from defeat in the just concluded Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Pitching for social harmony, the Congress president said, "We have to compensate for each drop of Rajiv's blood on Indian soil by promoting and strengthening social harmony".

"We will have to follow his values of simplicity, modernity, harmony and sensitivity. That will be our true homage to him. Only then we will be able to say that Rajiv is in us."

conspicuously, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were absence at the event, which was organised by the Youth Congress.

Meanwhile, taking a dig at the dynasty-driven Congress, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday 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.

He saw the party shrinking because of weak leadership of the dynasty.