Initiating the process of introspection after the humiliating defeat of the party in the lok Sabha polls, several Congress leaders have questioned the role played by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s hand-picked team in the rout. To make matters worse, UPA partners RJD and NCP have attributed the alliance’s drubbing to the “communication deficit” of the Government.
After young Congress leader Milind Deora, who lost his Mumbai seat and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh questioned the role of ‘Team Rahul’ on Thursday, senior Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi and former Mumbai MP Priya Dutt also made similar noises.Jairam Ramesh, Mohan Gopal, Madhusudan Mistry, Mohan Prakash, Ajay Maken and Digvijay Singh form ‘Team Rahul’.
While Deora said that Rahul’s advisers did not have their “ears to the ground” and those with “no electoral experience” were “calling the shots,” Singh blamed the defeat on the party’s poll managers
saying the Congress campaign started too late as compared to that of the BJP.
Deora said on his micro-blogging site that his comments were borne out of deep loyalty to the party and the pain due to its disastrous performance in the polls.
“My comments are out of emotions of deep loyalty to the party, pain of our performance & a sincere desire to see us bounce back. Nothing more,” Deora said on Twitter.
In comments that stoked a blame game within the party and appeared to question Rahul and his advisers, he said: “Field party work & electoral battles are key to comprehend ground realities. This should form the basis for leadership posts in the Congress.”
Senior party leader Chaturvedi appeared to be in agreement with the views expressed by Deora and hoped that an “honest and ruthless introspection” would be carried out to rectify the problems. Chaturvedi said while whatever Deora stated might not be totally right but a “large portion of what he said is correct.”
The remarks are considered significant in the wake of a growing perception in the party that a number of people with no electoral experience and novices in politics were given key roles in shaping the decisions of the leadership on issues like campaigning and alliances. There are a dozen-odd States where the Congress could not win even a single seat and these include major ones like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
AICC secretary Priya Dutt, who met Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday, also talked of a “disconnect” of party leaders with the people. “We need to bridge that gap. We need to bring that right up to the leadership. There is a lot of criticism. We have to look at where we have gone wrong in the past ten years,” she said. Both Deora and Dutt lost the elections in Mumbai.
They are considered to be part of Rahul’s team and it may be mentioned that Deora’s assertions in the past on some issues were also followed up by action by the Congress vice-president.
Senior Congress leader Amarinder Singh, however, said the Congress should take “collective responsibility” for the rout in which the party got just 44 seats.
However, alliance partner NCP’s leader Majid Memom said Deora’s remarks signify that he has indirectly commented on Rahul also.
At a Press conference in Mumbai on Thursday, NCP said there was a “communication deficit” on part of the outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi and also to issues like hike in prices of fuel and lPG cylinders by the ruling dispensation.
Recently, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath had also faulted Singh for being uncommunicative. Meanwhile, lalu Prasad’s party which did not perform as expected in the lok Sabha polls in Bihar said after meeting Sonia that the BJP’s handsome performance was due to the “spread of communal poison at grassroots”.