After poll rout, infighting grips Cong state units

A section of Assam Pradesh Congress unit wanted chief minister Tarun Gogoi removed

Infighting has broken out in several Congress state units after its rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

A section of the Assam Pradesh Congress unit wants Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi removed. Former chief minister Amarinder Singh is supporting a demand for the removal of Punjab Congress boss Partap Singh Bajwa. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and Himachal Pradesh Congress President Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu are engaged in a public spat over the party drawing a blank in the state.

In Punjab, where the Congress had fielded veterans Amarinder Singh and Ambika Soni for the Lok Sabha polls, the party was hoping to do well. The Congress won only three seats in the state. When over 20 Congress MLAs demanded Bajwa’s resignation Amarinder Singh supported the demand, and called the disciplinary notices served to two MLAs attempts to silence the popular sentiment in the party.

The All-India Congress Committee representative in charge of Punjab, Shakeel Ahmed, has set up a five- member committee to find reasons for the party’s poor performance. Headed by former Congress Working Committee member Dhaniram Shandilya and made up of MLAs from outside the state, the committee has a month to report.

In places where the Congress has not won a single Lok Sabha seat — Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir — the blame game has become intense.

When the Himachal Pradesh Congress chief called a meeting of all the party’s district committee heads to assess election performance, Virbhadra Singh questioned its need. He raised the issue of Sukhu’s opposition to the Congress candidate from Hamirpur and blamed him for losing the seat.

In Rajasthan, where Sachin Pilot was made the state party boss, superseding veterans like Girija Vyas and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, the Congress came a cropper. Pilot is considered close to Rahul Gandhi and explained to the Congress vice-president the need to groom new leaders for districts and panchayats.

With demands for for their resignations rising, Gogoi, Virbhadra Singh  and Maharashtra Chief Minister  Prithviraj Chavan have met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. Their resignations were rejected.

Ten days after its most humiliating defeat at the hustings, not a single head has rolled within the Congress,  either in Delhi or in the states. The party’s high command is yet to take decisions on fixing accountability. Several state Congress units have started taking stock of what went wrong, sensing the unease among party workers.

Asked why no Congress general secretary in charge of states had resigned, the party spokesperson said, “The Congress president and vice-president have accepted responsibility and their resignations were rejected. So, the matter ends there.”