Factionalism, poor local leadership behind poll losses: Leaders at CWC

Congress leaders on Monday blamed factionalism and poor local leadership and cited hurdles in campaigning and paucity of time for preparations as they analysed the party’s performance in the recent assembly polls in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Monday after party chief Sonia Gandhi asked them to take note of “our serious setback” and told them if they don’t “face up to the reality”, they will “not draw the right lessons.”

The party again deferred its internal election to find a successor of president Sonia Gandhi “in view of the nationwide emergent conditions prevailing on account of unprecedented corona pandemic” and several leaders maintained that organisation has to be devoted to Covid-19 relief work. Rahul Gandhi, who is recuperating from Covid-19, didn’t attend the CWC meeting on Monday.

In her opening remarks, Gandhi asked the CWC to “take note of our serious setbacks” and said that “to say that we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement”. She proposed the creation of a committee to analyse the results and added, “but if we do not face up to the reality, if we do not look the facts in the face, we will not draw the right lessons.

According to people present at the meeting, at one point, Gandhi quipped that under her stewardship, the party has lost elections in four states, seeming to suggest that she wanted to step down but senior leader Salman Khurshid intervened and urged her to continue through the pandemic.

After the chief ministers of states ruled by the Congress described the Covid situation in their respective states, it was the turn of the general secretaries to give their assessment of the polls, added the people cited above. The Congress lost badly in Assam and Kerala, performed poorly in Puducherry, and didn’t win a single seat in the West Bengal assembly. It was, however, the junior partner in the victorious Dmk-led alliance in Tamil Nadu.