No blame game: Top Cong leaders unlikely to face action for poll defeat

There has been no word on him from the party high command since.

Uttar Pradesh Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi is learnt to have offered to step down in the wake of the partys debacle in the elections. But Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is yet to take a call on her offer,said party sources.

Incidentally,after the partys debacle in the 2010 Bihar Assembly elections,state Congress chief Mehboob Ali Kaisar had also taken moral responsibility for the results and offered to resign.

There has been no word on him from the party high command since.

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On Wednesday,while Sonia summoned in-charges of the states that had gone to polls and sought explanation from them in one-on-one meetings,sources said no action has been contemplated so far. In fact,emerging from these meetings,she gave them a clean chit,saying they had done hardwork.

There is a striking similarity in the response of the Congress leadership to poll debacles from Bihar in 2010 where it had ended up with four seats in the 243-member House to UP in 2012 where it got 28 of 403 seats. After the decimation in Bihar,the Congress president had come to the party headquarters and told reporters: Results obviously indicate that our party has to start from the scratch to rebuild itself and that is what we plan to do.

On Wednesday,Sonia said: Rahul has already told you about Uttar Pradesh. Our organisation is weak in Uttar Pradesh.

On Tuesday,Rahul had said,Certainly,the Congress partys fundamentals are weak in UP. Organisationally,we are not where we should be and so that is where our lot of work is going to be.

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In November 2010,Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik,who was in charge of Bihar then,had taken full responsibility for the results and stated that the party will analyse why we could not translate the huge crowds that came in rallies addressed by our leaders.

He had rejected suggestions that Rahuls magic had failed in Bihar saying: The time which Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi gave for Bihar had benefited us greatly. It enthused our party workers. None of their rallies had less crowd.

On Wednesday,Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh took full responsibility for the partys debacle in UP and blamed the poor leadership in the state for the failure to convert the wave generated by Rahuls campaign into votes.

Leadership only gives a face to a party and determines the direction in which the wind blows,but turning this into votes is largely the work of party workers, Singh said in Rahuls defence.

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As of today,Mehboob Ali Kaisar is Bihar PCC chief and Wasnik remains a high profile AICC general secretary. As for the fate of those who had run the partys show in Uttar pradesh,nobody in the Congress is ready to place any bets,especially given the fact that Rahul and his team of young non-political aides were micro-managing the election.