Congress working committee to meet on Sunday to discuss polls debacle: The Tribune India

Tribune press service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 12

The Congress working committee will meet here on Sunday to discuss polling debacles in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab, a second setback for the big old party in recent times after its rout in Bengal , Assam, Kerala and Pondicherry.

Meanwhile, Congress Leader Sonia Gandhi convened a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Strategy Group at her residence on Sunday morning.

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

Top sources said threadbare discussions about the reasons for the loss and the way forward for the relaunch would take place.

The meeting comes shortly after senior G23 leaders met on Friday at the residence of former opposition leader in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad to express their shock at disastrous congressional defeats in five states, With 97% of party candidates losing their deposits in UP, the party failed to unseat the ruling BJP despite ruling opposition in four states and also failed to retain Punjab.

The scale of congressional defeats in five states has anguished senior leaders who have said accountability must be corrected.

The leaders also said privately that all decisions regarding recent polls were made by former party chairman Rahul Gandhi.

Only Rahul Gandhi and AICC General Secretary Priyanka Vadra were visible during the campaign despite the thickness of the list of star activists.

G23 sources say nothing has been done despite assurances of an overhaul given by Sonia Gandhi at their last meeting several months ago and nothing has been heard on the reasons for the party beating in Bengal and Kerala where he had allied himself with radical Muslim groups “without consulting anyone” and even to the chagrin of the IUML in Kerala.

Even reports of defeat in Bengal and Kerala were not discussed by the CWC despite increasing pressure on Congress to respect the welcome and its gradual decline.

With AAP organizer Arvind Kejriwal proclaiming a national revolution after his party’s historic victory in Punjab, the Congress would face even greater challenges of electoral existence as the AAP dares to replace it as party of choice and main challenger of the BJP.

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

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