Manmohan Singh, 3 senior leaders skip Congress meet post state polls defeat

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh among the four Congress leaders who didn’t attend the party’s Working Committee meeting on Sunday. The meeting has been called to discuss the party’s poll debacle in the recently held assembly elections in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Punjab and Goa, reported ANI. The meeting has taken place at the party’s 24, Akbar Road office in Delhi.

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Congress leader and former defence minister AK Antony gave the meeting a miss since he tested positive for coronavirus.

While Congress won 18 seats in Punjab and finished as the main opposition party, it won only two seats in Uttar Pradesh. In Goa, the party won 11 seats, while in Manipur Congress got five seats.

In Uttarakhand, Congress won 19 seats, which is their best performance in the recently concluded assembly elections.

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Among the leaders who were present in the meeting are Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijaya Singh, P Chidambaram, Harish Rawat, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal.

Chhattishgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Shaktisinh Gohil, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Rajiv Shukla, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik and Pramod Tewari are other top leaders who attended the meeting.

Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, the dissident group, G23, had suggested Mukul Wasnik for the post of president of the party, which was not accepted, the news agency reported.

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G23 consists of Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Kapil Sibal.

“Though Sonia Gandhi is the (interim) president, it is virtually (being) run by KC Venugopal, Ajay Maken and Randeep Surjewala. There is no accountability fixed on them. Rahul Gandhi is not the president. But he operates from behind the scene and takes decisions. He does not communicate openly. We are party’s well-wishers and not enemies,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.