Comments
New Delhi, March 10
The Congress suffered a blow on Thursday with a complete rout in Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand and, despite exhaustive campaign led by party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, failed to make its presence felt in politically-significant Uttar Pradesh. The defeat in the five State Assemblies have further diminished the party’s capacity to take on the BJP in 2024, and posed serious questions about its leadership.
In Punjab, the AAP defeated the party’s newly-selected Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and PCC President Navjot Singh Sidhu. Both leaders were hand-picked by the party high command of Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, ignoring the murmurs within the party.
In Uttarakhand, senior leader Harish Rawat was given a relatively free hand after his outburst against AICC in-charge of the State, Devender Yadav. In Uttarakhand, the party won 19 seats, where BJP got about 47 seats. In Manipur, too, the party was facing a number of internal issues. Despite efforts by senior leader Jairam Ramesh to streamline the political activities of the Opposition, the party failed to make a comeback in the State.
Similarly, in Goa, the party thought that it had a chance. Senior leader P Chidambaram oversaw the electoral preparations. Invitation by the Trinamool Congress to forge an alliance was ignored. The party could won 10 seats, and was leading in one in Goa at the time of filing this report.
The high command of the party is already under attack from the G 23, a group of leaders headed by senior Congressman Ghulam Nabi Azad. They are likely to sharpen their attack against the style of functioning of the high command.
Rahul Gandhi, however, said the Congress will continue to work for the interests of the people of the country. “Humbly accept the people’s verdict. Best wishes to those who have won the mandate. My gratitude to all Congress workers and volunteers for their hard work and dedication. We will learn from this and keep working for the interests of the people of India,” he said.
AICC General Secretary Randeep Surjewala said the party will continue to raise people’s issues such as inflation, unemployment and the sinking economy. “We will introspect on the causes of defeat, work on the organisation and will try to do better in future. We are definitely disappointed, but not demoralised. We have only lost the election, not courage. We are not going anywhere, we will keep fighting until we win. We will reinvent and return and will come back with a new strategy,” said Surjewala here on Thursday.
The Left parties, which also failed to make any mark, said the results indicate the continuing dominance of right-wing politics. “The Left and democratic forces will evolve fresh strategies and redouble their efforts in the fight against the Hindutva-corporate regime, its policies and growing authoritarianism,” said the CPI(M) in a statement .
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.