New Delhi: The Congress meeting on poll debacle concluded with the party admitting its inability to gauge public sentiments on a variety of issues including price rise, infighting and welfare schemes for its miserable run in the elections. The party leaders have also admitted to having underestimated Arvind Kejriwal's AAP for its rout in Delhi.
In a first, the party leaders have also acknowledged the need for the high command to assert its leadership to end the factionalism with in the party. According to reports, the party high command could come with an announcement on prime ministerial candidate soon.
Earlier in the day, Congress main ally, NCP hit out at the Congress leadership for being weak. In his blog post, NCP Chief Sharad Pawar lashed out at Congress saying that the reason behind Congress's failure is not having a strong and decisive leader. Pawar said the people will not accept weak leaders and the anger of the youth is evident as they didn't vote for the Congress. He added that the Congress and its allies need to introspect on the drubbing it received in the four states.
Outgoing Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit also acknowledged the concern. The three time Delhi Chief Minister, who saw a humiliating defeat in Delhi, including her embarrising loss to Kejriwal by over 20,000 votes, said she was fighting a lone battle and failed to get the support she needed from the party.
AICC General Secretaries in-charges and observers of all five states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram submitted their reports to the leadership, expressing surprise and disappointment at the results.
Mizoram is the only state where the Congress emerged winner. It was a loser in all the others including Delhi and Rajasthan where it was the ruling party. The seriousness of the exercise could be guaged from the fact that senior ministers like AK Antony and Ghulam Nabi Azad skipped a meeting of the Union Cabinet to attend the consultations.
After the two-hour-long meeting, the leaders including party general secretaries declined to talk to reporters nor any information was available officially from the AICC. There was speculation that the AICC in-charge of the states where Congress lost have offered to resign but there was no confirmation.
Asked about the speculation, one of the participants in the meeting declined to comment. Soon after the results in Madhya Pradesh, Congress campaign committee chief for the assembly elections in the state Jyotiraditya Scindia had called for "major
reconstruction" and introspection in the party. "On all accounts we failed, failed and failed. There is a need to relook.... It is the collective leadership of the party in the state (responsible for the loss)," he had said.
Stunned by the drubbing in assembly polls, top leadership of the party had pledged "deep introspection" with a view to "transform" the party to rectify its mistakes ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha elections. "We have to look into the way we took or did not take our message to the people and also we have to look at the way our own party is equipped or not so equipped in running an election," Sonia Gandhi had yesterday said.
At the AICC briefing, party spokesperson Meem Afzal was subjected to a host of questions as to who should be held responsible and whether Sonia and Rahul should not take the blame for the dismal show.
To this, he replied that the Congress Chief and Vice-President had already accepted the party's defeat. He attributed the Congress' rout in Madhya Pradesh to reasons including the inability of the party to take the message of unity of its faction-ridden unit before people and an ineffective campaign.
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