CWC postpones Cong chief’s, organisational election till Covid settles

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 10

The Congress Working Committee which met here today to discuss party’s reverses unanimously decided to postpone the elections to the AICC organisation and for the post of party president.

The CWC resolved to respond to Covid as a unit and also discussed the electoral losses of Congress. The CWC authorised Sonia Gandhi to form panels to review state wise losses. Earlier, Sonia Gandhi called for frank discussions on why the party lost.

The meeting began with a presentation by chief ministers of Congress ruled states on the Covid situation and challenges.

In her address to the CWC, Sonia said the CWC meeting has been convened to discuss the recent election results. 

“We have to take note of our serious setbacks. To say that we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement. I intend to set up a small group to look at every aspect that caused such reverses and report back very quickly.  We need to candidly understand why in Kerala and Assam we failed to dislodge the incumbent governments, and why in West Bengal we drew a complete blank. These will yield uncomfortable lessons, but if we do not face reality, if we do not look the facts in the face, we will not draw the right lessons,” she said.

Gandhi also took the CWC on board on the issue of electing a Congress president.

“When we met on January 22 we decided to complete the election process by end-June. The election authority chairperson Madhusudan Mistri ji, has prepared a schedule. Venugopal will read it out to you after our discussion on Covid-19 and the election results,” she said.

Soon the CWC will hear AICC General Secretaries - Jitender Singh for Assam, Tariq Anwar for Kerala, in charge Dinesh Gundurao for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Jitin Prasada for West Bengal on why the  Congress lost.

“I expect them to brief us very frankly on our performance in their respective states. We want them to tell us why we performed well below expectation. These results tell us clearly that we need to put our house in order. Finally, we can discuss the election of the Congress president,” Gandhi said.