Sonia Sets up Panel to Probe Cong Poll Debacle

New May: Interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday constituted a committee to investigate the reasons for the party's losses in the recently concluded assembly polls.

The Committee will be headed by Maharashtra Public Works Department Minister Ashok Chavan while former ministers Salman Khurshid, Manish Tewari and Vincent Pala are among its members. The other member is Tamil Nadu MP Jothi Mani.

The committee will give its report in two weeks.

The significant inclusion is Tewari who was part of the group which wrote the letter to Sonia Gandhi for organisational elections .

Earlier, Gandhi had said in the CWC meet: "I intend to set up a small panel to look at every aspect that caused such reverses (in the elections) and report back very quickly. We need to candidly understand why we failed to dislodge the incumbent governments in Kerala and Assam, and we drew a complete blank in West Bengal,"

"This CWC meeting was convened to discuss the results of the recently-held Assembly polls. She had said that party has to take note of thd serious setbacks. "To say that we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement," she said.

"These will yield uncomfortable lessons, but if we do not face up to the reality, if we do not look the facts in the face, we will not draw the right lessons." she added.

During the meeting, all the state in-charges presented their views on the recent poll debacle, with the party's West Bengal in-charge Jitin Prasada saying the alliance with the Indian Secular Front (ISF), formed by preacher-turned-politician Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, ruined the Congress' prospects in the state, sources said

The party's in-charge for Kerala, Tariq Anwar, told the CWC that the Congress became overconfident which led to its defeat in the state, and by the time it realised the same, it was too late, sources said.

The party's Assam in-charge Jitendra Singh informed that after the late Tarun Gogoi, Congress did not have a big face in the state, while smaller parties like Raijor Dol also dented the party's vote share.