Congress Gears Up to Rebuild in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: The Congress on Saturday began the process of preparing a roadmap to rebuild the party in Madhya Pradesh in the wake of debacles faced by the grand old party in the November 2023 Assembly polls as well as 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the state.

The AICC general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh affairs Jitendra Bhanwar Singh arrived here in the morning to hold discussions individually with all the candidates fielded by the party in Assembly and LS polls in the state to get feedback from them on the reasons of defeat in the elections by some of them and also victory by some others, a senior Congress functionary told this newspaper, unwilling to be quoted.

Co-in-charge of the party in MP C P Mittal and state Congress president Jitu Patwari were also present on the occasion.

The parleys with the party’s Assembly and LS candidates by the senior Congress leaders would continue for three days till Monday, he added.

The candidates have been asked to give their feedback on the state of affairs of the party in their respective constituencies , how active were different wings of the party during the polls, the role played particularly by the youth, and women wings and Seva Dal in the polls, the situation of other non-BJP parties such as Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the state, and the reason behind party’s debacle in LS polls in the state.

The party has also sought suggestions from them on the measures to be undertaken to strengthen Congress in Madhya Pradesh, sources said.

“Our focus is how to strengthen the party in Madhya Pradesh. We are getting feedback on the reasons for the loss of the party in the Assembly as well as LS polls in the state from the party candidates. We are going to prepare a roadmap to rebuild the party in the state”, Mr Singh said.

Congress had faced a complete washout in the just concluded LS polls in Madhya Pradesh by drawing a blank in the elections.

The party had also suffered a huge setback in the last Assembly elections by winning only 66 out of 230 seats.

A three-member fact-finding committee of AICC headed by former Maharashtra chief minister Prithivraj Chavan had visited Madhya Pradesh on June 29 to ascertain the reasons of party’s debacle in the 2024 LS polls.