New Delhi: Following a directive from former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, senior leaders in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat units were involved in brainstorming sessions to discuss an organisational revamp and ways to fix accountability over the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress drew a blank in Delhi, which has seven seats and Madhya Pradesh, which has 29 seats while the party could only win 1/11 seats in Chhattisgarh and 1/26 seats in Gujarat. Out of these, the Congress and the AAP had a pre-poll alliance in Delhi and Gujarat to take on the BJP but the grand old party had a direct contest with the saffron party in the crucial Hindi-speaking states MP and Chhattisgarh.
The Congress contested three seats in Delhi while the AAP fought on four. In Gujarat, the Congress contested 24 seats while AAP fought on two seats. Changes have begun to roll out in Delhi though an organisational review would continue, said party insiders.
“We have appointed senior leaders as special observers in 10 districts. They will be the link between the top leadership and the local workers. We have also done review meetings across all districts. Besides, monthly meetings across the districts have also been started to facilitate a constant review of organisational issues,” AICC in-charge of Delhi Dipak Babaria told ETV Bharat.
“The state leadership has started party programmes, including picking up people’s issues to flag the shortcomings of the AAP government, be it flooding of roads and residential areas in the rainy season or erratic water and power supply. We are also activating the old party workers in all areas and asking them to put up party flags atop their houses,” he said.
In MP, AICC in-charge Jitendra Singh has been conducting a series of organisational review meetings with state unit chief Jitu Patwari, CLP leader Umang Singhar, former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, senior leaders Arun Yadav, Ajay Singh, Kantilal Bhuria over the past few days to change the party structure.
“Once the detailed consultations are over, we should have a broad outline of the changes that we need to introduce in the party organisation,” Jitendra Singh told ETV Bharat.
Party insiders said the estimate was that the Congress would at least win six to seven seats in Madhya Pradesh out of 29, but the results were shocking. In Chhattisgarh, which was one a part of MP, AICC in-charge Sachin Pilot, has conducted one round of Lok Sabha poll review, along with state unit chief Deepak Baij, CLP leader Charan Das Mahant and former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and will hold another round of consultations with senior leaders on July 9-10 to firm up organisational changes and fix accountability.
“The Congress did well in the tribal areas while the BJP did well in the city areas. We need to focus on the urban areas. Though the state elections are different from national polls, we must fix the loopholes in our election strategy planning and implementation,” a senior AICC functionary said.
In Gujarat, Rahul has asked the state team to prepare for the 2027 assembly polls with full strength. AICC in-charge Mukul Wasnik reviewed the Lok Sabha results with the candidates and senior leaders recently to fix things ahead of the local body polls likely to take place in a few months.
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