New Delhi: CWC member P Chidambaram has said that the party should comprehensively review its Bihar defeat, while questioning the logic of contesting 70 assembly seats. He said Congress’ rout in bypolls in many states underscored the party’s negligible presence on the ground. His remarks came even as a section of AICC nudged colleagues to target Kapil Sibal for his remarks on Congress’ dismal performance in Bihar and is significant as he is not one of the 23 change seekers. “In Bihar, RJD-Congress had a chance of winning. Why we lost despite being so close to victory is something that needs comprehensive review. Not long ago, Congress had won Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,” Chidambaram told a Hindi newspaper. About the impression that Congress pulled down the Bihar opposition alliance, he said: “I feel Congress contested more seats than its organisational strength. Congress was given 25 seats where BJP or its allies had been winning for 20 years. Congress should have refused to contest them. The party should have fielded only 45 candidates.” Many in the Congress circles felt the remarks could console Congress workers that another senior leader shared their anguish. “I am more worried about the bypoll results in Gujarat, MP, UP and Karnataka. They show that the party either has no organisational presence on the ground or has been weakened considerably,” he said, while pointing out the relatively better performance of CPIML and AIMIM in Bihar showed the benefit of being “organisationally strong at the grassroots”. Many Congress leaders cheered exFM’s ‘glasnost’ as it came soon after party’s LS floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury criticised Sibal and advocated those who have problems with the ways of Congress better leave. “At a time when the Congress leadership should introspect on winning back people’s support, we have some puppets and their puppeteers asking the remaining people to leave the party.
This is free entertainment after Tuesday’s silly attempts by these little men to claim that some in-charges of states, where Congress lost badly, ‘offered their resignations to an AICC panel’ without even realising that only the Congress president has the powers to appoint, sack or receive offers of resignations,” said a Congress leader.
