New Delhi: Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge has convened a meeting of the Congress Working Committee on November 29 to review the recent poll losses in Maharashtra and Haryana as well as the party’s poor show in Union Territory Jammu and Kashmir and the various Assembly by-elections.
“The results were totally against our expectations. We had worked hard on the ground and distributed the tickets carefully. Furthermore, there was proper coordination among the MVA allies. Our feedback from the ground was positive, but the results were just the opposite. Our workers are not ready to accept the results and believe some kind of manipulation has taken place,” AICC secretary in-charge Maharashtra BM Sandeep told ETV Bharat.
The CWC will also discuss the way forward on the role of the EVMs which have been blamed for the shocking defeat of the INDIA Bloc in Maharashtra and the issue of polarisation in western Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal ahead of the crucial 2027 Assembly elections, said party insiders. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was likely to make a visit to Sambhal to meet the locals, said party insiders.
Over the past few days, the Congress and its ally Samajwadi party blamed the BJP government in the state for allowing communal violence to take place in Sambhal where several civilians were allegedly killed in police firing during protests over a court ordered survey of a mosque built during the reign of first Mughal emperor Babur in 1526. The petitioners claimed the mosque was built over the ruins of a temple and demanded that Hindus may be given permission to pray there.
“We have been flagging the role of the EVMs for a long time, but neither the Election Commission nor the courts listened to us. In this backdrop, we feel the need to launch a nationwide protest over the issue and demand a switch back to the ballot paper. We have to take our allies along also in this,” Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole told ETV Bharat.
Patole and other senior leaders from Maharashtra on Tuesday briefed Congress chief Kharge about the Assembly results. The CWC is also likely to review the party’s poor show in the various Assembly by-elections in Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar barring Karnataka and may discuss strategy for the coming Assembly elections in Delhi and Bihar where the Congress is not very strong, the insiders said. “We need to review the strategy in Bihar to push the INDIA Bloc after the byelection results,” said Bihar Congress chief Akhilesh Prasad Singh.
To prepare for Delhi, the Congress recently named AICC functionary Qazi Nizamuddin as in-charge replacing Dipak Babaria, but reviving the grand old party in the national capital is going to be an uphill task for him just months ahead of the elections, said party insiders. Besides the elections, the Congress will also conduct a nationwide campaign to safeguard the Constitution and push its caste census agenda over the next two months and the plans for the same may be discussed during the CWC meeting, the insiders added.
Read more: Cong Appoints Observers For Maharashtra, Jharkhand For Post-Election Scenarios
