Congress working committee meets today to discuss polls debacle: The Tribune India
Tribune press service
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, March 12
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet here on Sunday to discuss the polling debacles in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab, which represent the big old party’s second major shake-up in recent months. after its previous rout in West Bengal. , Assam, Kerala and Pondicherry.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi will chair the meeting to be held at AICC headquarters tomorrow evening.
Top sources said threadbare discussions about the reasons for the losses, the way forward and the need for “surgery to stem the rot” needed to take place.
The meeting comes shortly after senior G23 leaders – Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, BS Hooda and Akhilesh Prasad Singh – met at the residence of veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday to express their shock at the “ disastrous defeat” of the party.
The CWC had, at its last meeting on October 16, approved the schedule for internal Congress elections, which provided that the election of the leader of the party would take place by September 20 and that Sonia Gandhi would continue as leader by interim until then.
According to the schedule so far, Congress organizational elections are due to start next month with balloting for bloc committees and one member from each of the Pradesh Congress committees scheduled for April 16 to May 31. The process is expected to conclude with the election of the AICC President between August 21 and September 20.
It remains to be seen whether Sonia, finding herself tomorrow with her children in the line of fire, will propose to bring forward the timetable for the internal elections or anything else more drastic.
Meanwhile, a CWC member said today: “The fact that 97% of Congress candidates lost their deposits in the UP, the fact that the party failed to dislodge the BJP despite the anti-incumbency in four states and lost Punjab to newcomer AAP are very hard to reconcile. Some difficult decisions would have to be made and accountability fixed.
The magnitude of the congressional defeats has left many party members in anguish.
AAP’s Somnath Bharti today said the party would soon embark on membership drives in southern Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep and would also organize marches from April 14, the birthday of Dr BR Ambedkar. , from Telangana.
G23 leaders anxious over results
G23 sources say none of the assurances reorganized Congress President Sonia Gandhi gave to the group’s leaders more than a year ago have not been fulfilled, nor the reports of the AICC panels set up to examine the causes of the losses of Bengal and Kerala submitted to the CWC. “In Bengal and Kerala, the Congress aligned itself with radical Muslim outfits to the chagrin of even the IUML. Who makes these decisions? asked a senior leader, adding that issues would arise within the CWC, especially with the AAP seeking to expand its national footprint to replace Congress as the main challenger to the BJP.
