Shell-shocked over its worst-ever performance in the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) will meet in New Delhi on Monday amidst a clamour within for a surgical action to revamp the party.
While party sources have ruled out reports of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi offering to resign in the wake of the debacle, the meeting could see some leaders raising uncomfortable questions about the party’s campaign and alliance strategy.
There are questions being raised about the style of working of Rahul Gandhi but doubts are being expressed whether any one would make bold to raise them in the meeting to be presided over by Ms. Gandhi.
An exercise has already begun in the party to insulate him from any blame game. Ms. Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi appeared before the media on Friday and took personal responsibility for the drubbing that left the party with just 44 seats in a House of 543, a huge climbdown from the 206 seats it had in the outgoing Lok Sabha.
Accountability should be clearly fixed and action taken wherever there are individual responsibilities, a party leader said.
“Serious introspection is needed but surely not like in the past when suggestions arising out of the introspection were never implemented,” Anil Shastri, who is a Special Invitee to the CWC said on Twitter.
He is believed to have written a blunt letter to the Congress vice president on what went wrong and what needs to be done to get the party back on rails.
Mr. Shastri, son of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, has been maintaining ever since the results were out that the party needs “serious introspection” and immediate corrective measures to check problems like party hoppers managing to get tickets and old-time partymen being ignored in the process.
