The Congress has embarked on a post-mortem of the drubbing it received in the elections to local bodies, municipalities Assembly and the Lok Sabha. This follows a directive from the party high command for a report from the ground level.
Party candidates who contested for the Lok Sabha and the Assembly, former MPs and MLAs and district-level office-bearers have been invited to the meeting that will be attended by APCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy and former United Andhra Pradesh PCC president Botcha Satyanaryana.
The carving out of Telangana and the “undemocratic manner” in which it was done are being seen as crucial factors behind the “humiliating” defeat of the party, while other factors such as anti-incumbency and failure to counter TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu’s effective campaign, too, contributed significantly to the results, the first ever when the Congress could not win a single seat in the 175-member Assembly.
The review meeting is scheduled for June 17 at Parinaya Kalyanamandapam near NTR Health University. Party observers Gidugu Rudraraju and T.J.R. Sudhakar Babu visited the venue of the meeting on Monday.
Mr. Rudraraju said over 300 delegates would deliberate on the factors behind the party’s poor show. Another objective of the meeting is to take corrective measures to ensure that the party is prepared to take up public issues in right earnest.
The experience of candidates who were defeated will also be documented. “Many of the candidates were first-timers, and their experience would be different,” Mr Rudraraju said.
