Congress holds review meeting on Chhattisgarh Assembly poll loss

AICC held meeting to review Chhattisgarh loss; Kumari Selja expressed disappointment, listed positive factors; Jai Singh Agrawal blamed centralisation of power, lack of respect for mandate, obstructing development work; BJP won 54 seats with 13% vote swing; other leaders refrained from pointing fingers; Baghel questioned why EVM questions irritate BJP; Singh Deo said not right to blame EVMs.

Even as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) on December 8 held a meeting to review the party’s recent power-shifting electoral loss in Chhattisgarh, a member of the outgoing Bhupesh Baghel Cabinet has targeted Mr. Baghel for the loss.

After the meeting — that was held in Delhi and was attended by the top national leaders as well as those from the State unit, including Mr. Baghel — Kumari Selja, the AICC in-charge of Chhattisgarh, expressed disappointment while also listing out some factors that the party considers as positive. She, however, did not offer any specific comment on what led to the party not only losing a mandate, but also its strength in the Assembly shrinking to less than half (34) of what it had when the elections were held (71).

“We had a trustworthy government. We also won the trust of the people. We lost the elections. We could not form the government; we are disappointed but not discouraged. There are many reasons. We are reviewing them in detail and all the people… all the colleagues together have assured the high command, our top leaders that of course it will be a little less than our expectations… that the government may not be formed, but the confidence of the people we haven’t lost and people still look up to us,” Ms. Selja told journalists after the meeting. 

“But at the same time I would also say that any survey... be it your national media, be it regional media... be it any agency, everyone had said that in Chhattisgarh we are going to win the elections. Perhaps to some extent you were proved right, because our vote percentage has not decreased much. Our vote percentage has remained the same as compared to last time, which is no small thing,” she said. 

But on a day the meeting was held, Jai Singh Agrawal, one of the nine Ministers to lose the Assembly polls, openly came out against Mr. Baghel, accusing him of centralisation of power and running the show with his close aides.

“Our government could not properly respect the mandate we received [in 2018]. The Ministers did not get the power they were supposed to get. One force remained centralised and worked with some selected forces for the whole five years, which was an atmosphere of tussle,” he said.