Hyderabad: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Saturday urged party workers to “listen to the wishes and the will of the people we are supposed to represent” and to counter the opponents’ politics of fear, anger, and hatred with love and affection.
Without naming any party, he said the new kind of politics was aimed at crushing the opposition rather than engaging with it. “Our opponents have a monopoly on anger, fear, and hatred. We cannot and should not fight them on that ground… Our lens should be love and affection,” Rahul told the valedictory session of the ‘Bharat Summit-2025′, adding “in a sense, the old politician is dead, and a new kind of politician has to be constructed.”
He apologised to the audience for not being able to attend the summit inaugural on Friday as he went to meet the injured of the Pahalgam terrorist attack. “Politics changed. The rules that applied a decade ago don’t work anymore. “Concentrated capital and media control reshaped the political landscape. There was a period when Congress felt trapped and isolated, with avenues for opposition systematically closed off. That is when we reached back into history and launched Bharat Jodo Yatra,” he said.
Underlining the need for love and harmony and how “nafrat ke bazar mein mohabbat ki dukan” slogan became ‘powerful’ in the country, he said “no matter how much hatred someone spreads, the biggest way to disrupt them was not by fighting or responding with hatred, but with love.”
Rahul said it was during Bharat Jodo Yatra that he discovered the transformative power of listening. “Within no time, I spoke less and listened more, and that changed everything,” he said, citing the example of a woman who came rushing to meet him during the Yatra to tell him how much she was harassed by her husband. He said the moment she narrated her pain, she felt relieved. And that was what people want; they want to be heard and not just lectured by the politicians. “Yes, welfare schemes will exist, but it is very important to listen to the people,” he added.
The summit passed a ‘Hyderabad Resolution’ with a 44-point agenda on ‘delivering global justice’. The Congress leaders and global delegates collectively adopted the Hyderabad Resolution, which reaffirms a shared commitment to the values of freedom, equality, justice, and solidarity, uniting social-democratic, socialist, and labour movements from around the world.