Sonia: Kids are worried

New Delhi, Jan. 23: Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka have been trying to persuade their workaholic mother to take a long-deserved break, but without success.

“I and my sister have been telling her for the last five years to take a holiday. But she has refused,” Rahul said at a lunch hosted by Congress general secretary M. Veerappa Moily.

The only time off Sonia allowed herself was forced: she was in hospital with a respiratory infection for a week since December 31. Many in the Congress believed it was her first long break since the UPA came to power in the summer of 2004.

The Congress chief has spent her short spells away from work in her favourite retreats, Shimla and Kausani, where Suman Dubey, a close friend of the Gandhis, has a cottage.

The only private trip Sonia made abroad was to the Maldives. Then too, she came back after a couple of days while the family stayed on.

Rahul said he and Priyanka had used “every trick in the book” to cajole Sonia but she was “very persistent and never changed her mind”. The young general secretary felt others could help. “I am sure you (the media) will press upon this (a break for Sonia).”

Moving to other things, Rahul said he did not appreciate L.K. Advani making public a private conversation between them. The BJP leader had told a journalist how “touched” he was when, during a chance encounter at Delhi airport in the middle of the Gujarat polls, Rahul had walked up to wish him.

Asked if he was upset, Rahul said: “I don’t have a sense of disappointment. It is his prerogative. I have a certain obligation (to keep it private).”

During their conversation, Advani apparently told Rahul the BJP and the Congress should treat each other as “political adversaries and not enemies”. Today, the Amethi MP explained his stand. “I maintain the BJP is our political adversary because we have fundamental differences with them.”

Outlining his roadmap, Rahul said he had mostly been involved in “behind-the-scenes” work as a general secretary so far but would start touring the country from February. The campaign will begin from the south, though not from election-bound Karnataka.

The meetings will be organised by the Youth Congress and the NSUI, which Rahul is in charge of. “I want to understand what’s happening in the organisation instead of working in an ad hoc way. I am trying to create basic institutional structures.”

On his pet theory about involving more youths in politics, Rahul said youngsters wanted to be a part of the political system but the “political class has distanced itself from them”. “I am saying distance, not alienation,” he said, adding that politicians should evolve a “new type of thinking” to bring in youngsters.

On the Congress routs in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, Rahul said: “Politics is not like a switch which can be put on and off. Politics is not just about winning and losing elections.”