CWC meet: Clamour for revamp likely as Cong looks for answers

Shell-shocked over its worst-ever performance in the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meets here on Monday amidst a clamour within for a surgical action to revamp the party.

Though directly no one may point fingers at Rahul Gandhi, the role of his key advisers including Jairam Ramesh, Mohan Gopal, Madhusudan Mistri and Mohan Prakash may be questioned.

As the Congress party searches for answers for its disastrous performance, senior minister Kamal Nath has already sounded a word of caution against ‘patronage politics’ and felt that prime minister Manmohan Singh should have been more forthright and that the communication was a problem.

A number of Union ministers could also face the ire of party leaders at the meet for their ‘total lack of communication’ with party workers.

As several Union Cabinet ministers lost in their respective seats miserably, a senior party leader said that there was a total disconnect of the ministers with party workers and their ‘arrogance’ is to be blamed for the backlash against the party.

While party sources have ruled out reports of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi offering to resign in the wake of debacle, the meeting could see some leaders raising uncomfortable questions about the party’s campaign and alliance strategy.

There are questions being raised about the style of working of Rahul Gandhi but doubts are being expressed whether anyone would make bold to raise them in the meeting to be presided over by Sonia.

An exercise has already begun in the party to insulate him from any blame game. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi appeared before the media on Friday and took personal responsibility for the drubbing that left the Congress party with just 44 seats in a House of 543, a huge climbdown from 206 

seats it had in the outgoing Lok Sabha.

There are demands from the party leaders that this time the customary practice of setting up a committee to go into the reasons for the defeat and then forgetting it should not be repeated.