Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has said that nothing worse could have happened to the party than the defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but also said the loss had taught the Grand Old Party some valuable lessons.

“...I must say that it (the loss) was a blessing in disguise for us. In fact, it has only been beneficial to the Congress,” he said, according to party sources. Rahul was addressing a meeting of professionals and party workers in Vadodara on Monday night.

The Congress leader also “thanked” the BJP for this lesson well learnt. “The BJP actually helped us a lot. It beat us up and abused us so much so that this thrashing opened our eyes. This was the greatest thing to have happened to us,” Rahul said, while replying to queries during an interactive session.

Asked about the BJP’s slogan of “Congress-mukt India”, the Nehru-Gandhi scion said: “Both the BJP and the Congress are expressions of the people of India. I will never say I want to finish off the BJP. That party can say so about us. My family follows Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy. I subscribe to the ideology of the Congress.”

On Tuesday, responding to a question at a group meeting, Rahul said women seemed to be absent from the RSS. “Have you seen any girls or women wearing shorts in an RSS shakha ?”

Asked about the BJP’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme, he said the party was currently running a ‘Beta Bachao’ programme to save BJP chief Amit Shah’s son (Jay).

Rahul had arrived in Central Gujarat on Monday, on the second leg of his Navsarjan Yatra, scheduled in the run-up to Assembly elections in the State. During his yatras, he has been visiting districts for three consecutive days. He has generally refrained from addressing big public meetings and, instead, focused on interacting with groups of people, students, professionals and others.

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