Rahul Gandhi gets blunt feedback on reasons for defeat

LUCKNOW: Nearly two months after the Congress' debacle in the high stakes Uttar Pradesh polls, the Congress general Secretary Rahul Gandhi on whom the entire poll campaign revolved was back to listen to the voters in his family bastion of Amethi-Rae Bareli.

Party workers were upfront and blunt in their criticism of the Congress campaign style and the coterie that hover around the Gandhi family members blocking out people from meeting their leaders.

Faced with a slew of complaints, Gandhi said that he will overhaul the party organisation within three months and asked the workers to dedicate themselves for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Gandhi arrived in his parliamentary constituency Amethi on Monday, this being his first visit to the state after the UP assembly debacle where the Congress managed to win just 28 out of 403 seats, despite high decibel campaign.

He held two closed door meetings in the Tiloi and Salaon assembly segment for nearly three hours each respectively.

The Congress won just two of the 10 seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli represented by him and his mother Congress President Sonia Gandhi respectively despite the Gandhi family pulling all stops during the campaign which saw even Priyanka Gandhi Vadra camping in the district.

Rahul Gandhi's visit was described by state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi as a review exercise to asses the workers problems and find out reasons for defeat.

Gandhi who is used to a timid audience on his visits to the family borough was in for a surprise as workers were livid with the way the party was being run.

Party workers reportedly told Gandhi that he was always surrounded by leaders who prevented the common workers from meeting him. Others told Gandhi that many leaders in the party had become brokers who only wanted to benefit from the party's government at the centre and elsewhere and had little interest in reviving the Congress.

Party workers were quoted saying that wrong people had been selected for important assignments and the party suffered because of the coterie that has come to take control of things within the organisation.

While Rahul Gandhi said that problems like water and power supply came under the state governments domain he promised that corrective measures would be taken to revamp the party in three months time. He said that honest party workers would be given importance and others would be sidelined.