Elections results highlights: Congress should rely more on mass leaders: Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI: Lamenting the party's 'huge loss' in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit today said it should come out of the clutches of "party managers" and "rely more on mass leaders."

"There is a culture in the party that you capture the Congress and Congress will capture the votes for you. The party managers have become stronger than the mass leaders who can get votes," he said.

Without taking names, the former Delhi MP said the party managers were acting like "feudal lords".

"We (Congress) have leaders with mass base but we do not encourage them. We are only looking at party managers who are patronisers. We are more busy in saving each other than saving the party," he charged.

Sandeep is son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who was projected as Congress' Chief Ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh, but later withdrawn after the party entered into an alliance with Samajwadi Party for the state polls.

Referring to Amarinder Singh, Dikshit said the role of mass leaders in winning elections was evident from the party's victory in Punjab.

He said Congress could be in a "very bad situation", if it did not introspect more openly this time.

"Some kind of introspection must happen more openly this time...It all depends on how we read these results. If we feel satisfied that we are renominated as the prominent opposition party, then we will be in trouble," he said.

"Besides attacking Modi there are various other things and small steps which we need to take," he added.

The BJP and its allies marched ahead in 305 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh as per trends from all the 403 seats, which showed the SP-Congress coalition leading in 68 places and BSP in only 20.