Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Aslam Sher Khan said here on Sunday that dependence on the senior leaders of the party was the main cause of its defeat in the last month’s Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.
Khan, a former hockey Olympian-turned-politician, said that these leaders kept telling Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi that the party would win. The Congress can still bounce back if it went back to its roots and reach out to the common people, Khan added. He also dared Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to defeat Congress leaders such as Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh in the forthcoming lok Sabha elections.
Replying to a question about action against Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamalnath, Khan said that leadership at the center would decide. These leaders are accountable to the masses which hold their faith in Congress party but due to their wrong strategy they were disappointed. Alleging that the Congress failed to learn from its past mistakes, Khan said the Narendra Modi factor helped the Bharatiya Janata Party win in the four States during the recent Assembly elections.
“Modi factor worked so effectively which could not overcome the anti-incumbency factor in these States including in Madhya Pradesh where the Congress could not announce its chief ministerial candidate,” Khan told media here. Khan regretted that he was dubbed as ‘enemy of the party’, but in reality he pointed out the weaknesses of the party and wanted to correct it and suggested more participation of minority and neglected classes of society in the party.
He alleged that some leaders of Madhya Pradesh misled the high command and projected a rosy picture of the party but the results of the Assembly polls exposed their claim. Khan claimed that due to his efforts the Congress fought the elections in the State unitedly and the selection candidates was also by and large right.
To a query, Khan supported Congress MP Sajjan Singh Verma’s comments that some top Congress leaders from the State are “Jhola Chhap” (incompetent). “ Verma is a parliamentarian and also connected with the grass-root level. Hence, his assessment might be right,” the Congress leader quipped. Khan also wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on December 9 suggesting his views about the prospect of the party in the coming general elections and also sought appointment from her to narrate the ‘ground reality’ of the party in Madhya Pradesh.