Some days after Congress chief Mrs. Sonia Gandhi described the Congress’ performance in April’s elections as “very disappointing” and said it was “unexpectedly so, she also said recently, “the party should take note of our serious setbacks (and) put our house in order. “
While she congratulated Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin for their wins, she said, “Unfortunately, our own performance in all the states was very disappointing and if I may say, unexpectedly so. The CWC is meeting shortly to review results…”
Mrs. Gandhi said the CWC (Congress Working Committee) – the party’s highest decision-making body – would meet soon to review the results. The Congress is scheduled to have presidential elections in June as well.
She also said, “… but it goes without saying that we, as a party collective, must draw appropriate lessons from this setback in a spirit of humility.”
During this election, Congress had fared poorly and struggled to gain voters in this round of Assembly elections.
In Kerala, the Congress was able to hold its fortress, losing just one seat from 2016 to finish with 41. The Left front, however, registered a commanding win by claiming 99 seats. The BJP won zero seats.
In Bengal, where the party joined hands with the Left, it was shut out and the alliance was extinguished. By contrast, the Trinamool rose to victory with 213 seats to the BJP’s 77.
In Assam – widely seen as a Congress stronghold until it was breached in 2016 – the party did marginally better, winning 29 of 95 seats it contested. But the opposition alliance failed to challenge the BJP, winning just 50 seats to the ruling party’s 75.
In Tamil Nadu, the party was part of the leading DMK-led alliance and performed comparatively better, winning 18 of 25 allocated seats. It, however, failed to return to power in Puducherry – where its government crashed days before polling – after the NR Congress-BJP pairing won 16 of 30 seats.
These results come after a poor performance in Bihar, where elections were held in October-November. The party allied with the Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD but won just 19 of 70 seats it contested and the alliance finished just 15 seats short of overthrowing the BJP-JDU government.
Over last year, several senior Congress leaders have called for self-examination over continuing poor results in elections, including veterans like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, and Kapil Sibal.
In August, 23 of them wrote a letter to Mrs. Gandhi asking for a”full time” and visible” leadership to take the party forward, but this sparked off a row splitting the party to an extent.
Most of the party workers and general public are looking forward to Congress reorganizing itself and look upon this as a very welcome move because India needs a strong opposition.