In her first comments after the UP polls, Gandhi said though the communal forces have been dealt a severe blow, 'our performance has been very disappointing'.
NEW DELHI: Two of the Congress party’s most powerful leaders, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, blamed the organisation for the party’s abysmal performance in the recently concluded UP assembly elections. The Congress President told the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) that the party was unable to transform the goodwill amongst the people into votes because it did not have a proper organisation in place.
Emerging from his self-imposed hibernation after the UP polls, Rahul Gandhi said much the same thing. “Basically we did not have an organisation in place, hence we failed to capitalise on the response of the people,” he said .With both the mother-son duo laying the blame on the organisation, it is almost certain that there will be large-scale changes in the party, particularly in its UP unit. Senior party leaders believe that it’s just a matter of time before the UPCC chief Salman Khursheed and his team of office-bearers is changed.
The results of the UP elections appear to have come as a rude awakening to the Congress leadership, which had pinned its hopes on Rahul Gandhi’s intensive campaigns helping bring about a turnaround in its fortunes.
In the 2002 assembly elections, the party won 25 of the 402 seats it contested. In 2007, the party contested 392 seats and ten seats were left for Mahender Singh Tikait’s party.
Yet, the Congress managed to win only 22 seats, 7 of which came from the family pocket borough of Rae Bareli and Amethi, thanks to Priyanka Gandhi. Senior Congress leaders believe that the results may now force Sonia Gandhi to revamp her party organisation at the national as well as state level.
The Congress party has been in a state of limbo ever since the UPA formed the government at the centre and there are several key posts lying vacant at the AICC. Ambika Soni and A K Antony were looking after key states as general secretaries. Both have now become ministers at the centre. The party is yet to fill in important posts in states like Gujarat which are going to the polls later in the year.
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