After Three-State Loss, Congress Calls Party Meeting Today to Review What Went Wrong

In view of its defeat in the recently concluded Assembly elections, the Congress party is set to hold a meeting on Friday to review its poll performance in three states – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

The meeting will be chaired by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, while central leadership and state leaders are also expected to mark their presence.

The meeting is scheduled after the grand old party managed to register its victory in only one state – Telangana – of the five states that went to the polls. Notably, the Congress lost its power to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The party also failed to dislodge the saffron camp from Madhya Pradesh. Subsequently, it also failed to win Mizoram polls.

What This Defeat Means for Congress?

The meeting is being seen as the first structural review of the Congress party following its unsatisfactory performance in the recently held Assembly elections. The polls were termed to be crucial as it was the last major electoral exercise before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The election results in the four poll-bound states, especially the losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, came as a huge blow to the Congress making its comeback difficult in the Hindi heartland in the upcoming 2024 polls.

Congress Performance in Assembly Polls

In Rajasthan, the Congress party suffered a huge loss after it lost its government to the BJP which won 115 seats in the 199-member Assembly. Meanwhile, the grand old party was restricted to just 69 seats.

Of the 90 Assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged 54 while the Congress won 35. Meanwhile, in Madhya Pradesh, the grand old party was unable to snatch power from the saffron party as BJP won a resounding mandate bagging 163 seats.

In a first, the Congress secured an absolute majority winning 64 of 119 seats in Telangana throwing the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) out of power in the state. The party formed its government in Telangana for the first time since the formation of the state in 2014.