After Priyanka, Scindia meets party's UP leaders to find poll debacle causes

Following his party's worst-ever drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradeh, Congress general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia Friday met the party's state leaders to assess what went wrong in the elections.

Scindia, who was made in-charge of the western UP, and given the responsibility of 38 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, failed to ensure a single victory.

A Congress leader who attended the meeting said he spoke to the district and city unit chiefs of the organisation to find out the possible causes behind the rout.

Two days back, party's general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, entrusted with the task of managing polls in the remaining 42 seats in the eastern UP, carried out a similar exercise in Rae Bareli, which was the only seat won by the party this time from the state.

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was re-elected from Rae Bareli, while Congress president Rahul Gandhi, her son, lost his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

Priyanka Gandhi has asked senior UP Congress leaders to attend a brain-storming session in Delhi over the weekend to chart out the strategy to contest the 2022 UP assembly polls with full vigour.

Ashok Singh, who was trying to get a party ticket from Etawah Lok Sabha seat and was present in the meeting, told PTI, "At the meeting, I conveyed that the party must end experimentation of all kind."