Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday in a crucial meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) began with the discussion on the party's poor performance in the recently-held Assembly polls and election to the new party chief. She demanded that the party "take note of our serious setbacks (and) put our house in order" and face the reality to draw the right lessons. Congress has performed very poorly in the recently held assembly polls in Assam, West Bengal and Kerala.
Addressing the meeting, party chief Sonia Gandhi said: "This CWC meeting has been convened to discuss the results of the recently-held Assembly polls. We have to take note of our serious setbacks. To say that we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement."
Ms Gandhi had said that senior leaders from Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Bengal would be required to "brief us, very frankly, on our performance..."
"We want them to tell us why we performed well below expectation. These results tell us clearly that we need to put our house in order," Mrs Gandhi said. "We have to take note of our serious setbacks. To say we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement. I intend to set up a small group to look at every aspect that caused such reverses and report back very quickly," she added.
"I intend to set up a small panel to look at every aspect that caused such reverses and report back very quickly. We need to candidly understand why in Kerala and Assam we failed to dislodge the incumbent governments, and why in West Bengal we had drawn a complete blank.”
These will yield uncomfortable lessons, but if we do not face reality, if we do not look the facts in the face, we will not draw the right lessons," she said.
"The situation has become even more catastrophic. Governance failures have become even more stark. Scientific advice has been willfully ignored and the country is paying a horrendous price for the Modi government's neglect of the pandemic, indeed its willful patronage of super-spreader events that were allowed for partisan gains," she said.
"There is another important issue on which I would like your guidance. When we met on January 22, we had decided that the process for electing a Congress president would be completed by the end of June. The election authority chairperson Madhusudan Mistri has prepared a schedule. Venugopal will read it out to you after our discussion on Covid-19 and the election results".
The General Secretaries - Jitender Singh for Assam, Tariq Anwar for Kerala, in charge Dinesh Gundurao for Tamil Nadu & Puducherry and Jitin Prasada for West Bengal - to make their presentations.
"Finally, we can discuss the election to the new Congress chief," Gandhi added.
Over the past senior Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor and Kapil Sibal have called for "full-time" and "effective leadership" which will be visible in the field.
On August, 23 they wrote to Mrs Gandhi expressing concern over the downfall of the party and said that its revival was necessary for the country and democracy. Congress needs extensive changes, including decentralisation of power, empowerment of state units and organizational elections at every level.
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Ms Gandhi had last week described the party’s performance in the polls as "very disappointing and unfortunate”.