Congress Working Committee to meet on Sunday to discuss poll debacle

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 12

The Congress Working Committee will meet here on Sunday to discuss poll debacles in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab, a second setback to the grand old party in recent times after its previously rout in Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry.

Meanwhile, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has called a Congress parliamentary strategy group meeting at her residence on Sunday morning.

Sonia Gandhi will chair the CWC meeting to be held physically at party headquarters here.

Top sources said threadbare discussions on the reasons behind the loss and the way forward for revival would be held.

The meeting comes soon after senior leaders of G 23 met at the residence of former leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday to express shock at the disastrous defeats of the Congress in five states with 97 per cent party candidates losing deposits in UP, the party failing to dislodge ruling BJP despite anti incumbency in four states and also failing to retain Punjab.

The scale of Congress defeats in five states has anguished senior leaders who said accountability needs to be fixed.

Leaders privately also said all decisions with respect to recent polls were taken by former party president Rahul Gandhi.

Only Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary UP Priyanka Vadra were visible in campaigning despite the list of star campaigners being thick.

The G 23 sources said nothing was done despite assurances of revamp given by Sonia Gandhi to then in their last meeting held several months ago nor was anything heard about reasons for party’s drubbing in Bengal and Kerala where it allied with radical Muslim outfits “without consulting anyone” and even to the displeasure of IUML in Kerala.

Even the reports of defeat in Bengal and Kerala were have not been discussed by the CWC despite growing pressure on the Congress to deliver at the hosting and its progressive decline.

With AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal proclaiming a national revolution after his party’s historic Punjab win the Congress would face even greater challenges of electoral existence with AAP daring to replace it as a party of choice and BJP’s main challenger.

Only yesterday Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee again snubbed Congress saying “opposition parties interested in defeating the BJP must come together instead of sitting around and waiting for the Congress, which has lost credibility.”

Mamata said the Congress appeared disinterested in the larger goal of defeating BJP.