Congress general secretary and UP in-charge Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has summoned senior leaders from Uttar Pradesh with a review report on the reasons for the defeat of the party in the UP Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi has asked the presidents of the Pradesh Congress Committees of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur to put in their resignations to facilitate reorganisation of PCCs, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a tweet on Tuesday.
Now UPCC chief Ajay Kumar Lallu has to resign.
In the review meeting held at the Congress headquarters here on Monday, the candidates enumerated the reasons for their defeat. Only two Congress MLAs, including the party’s leader in state assembly, Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’, have won the election.
Vadra on Tuesday evening also held discussions with the leaders on the reasons behind the party’s debacle in New Delhi.
Earlier, party national secretaries Tauqir Alam, Pradeep Narwal, Rajesh Tiwari, Bajirao Khade and Satyanarayan Patel and UPCC president Ajay Kumar Lallu held a meeting with the candidates and office-bearers and inquired about the reasons for the defeat.
Many candidates complained of non-support of the organisation and no help by local leaders. Most of the candidates attributed the election to direct fight between the two parties as the reason for the defeat of the Congress candidates as well as those of Bahujan Samaj Party.
At the same time, the candidates were also asked which people helped them and how many did good work. Many candidates also shared their experiences in writing.
They also highlighted the high command's failure to build cadres and to keep the leaders with a significant voter base in their areas in the party fold.
Sources in the party said that before the elections, organisational leaders had assured that at least 10-member committees were formed at every booth before the election but many candidates got less than 1,000 votes in assemblies having about 400 booths.
“We were told that 10 youth committees were formed at the booth level in every constituency. There are about 400 booths in every assembly segment. But a candidate getting 1,200-1,500 votes means that even those 10 members that party claimed were party workers did not vote for the party nominees,' said a party candidate, and added, “Not even women got votes.”
Nearly all the leaders were unanimous that AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra worked hard and came up with ideas that could have clicked but said there was no cadre on the ground to “execute” the ideas.
Interestingly, some of the candidates who attended Monday’s meeting, on request of anonymity, revealed that the seriousness of the top leadership in UP as well as those looking on behalf of AICC could be gauged from the fact that they were playing games or watching videos on their mobile phones when they were sharing the reasons for their defeats.
It may be mentioned that Congress candidates have not been able to perform well in the elections. Only two leaders, Aradhana Mishra Rs Mona’ and Virendra Chowdhary, have won. While four candidates were at number two position, 387 candidates forfeited their deposits.
Priyanka Gandhi also made a new experiment under the Rs Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon’ campaign and gave 40 per cent tickets to women but the move failed as except for Aradhana Mishra, who is already a two-time MLA, all other women candidates lost their deposits.