MP: Congress fact-finding committee reviews party’s debacle in MP LS polls

Bhopal: A three-member AICC fact-finding committee headed by former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan on Saturday arrived here to review the party’s debacle in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh.

The committee is scheduled to hold a one-to-one meeting with the LS candidates of the party in Madhya Pradesh to ascertain the causes of their defeats in the polls.

Other members of the committee are Congress MP from Koraput in Odisha Saptagiri Ulka and Jignesh Mevani.

The committee members are scheduled to hold discussions with the party’s LS candidates as well as the Congress MLAs and district level leaders of the party over two days here to find out the reason for the wash out of the party in the LS polls in the state.

Congress had fielded candidates in 28 out of total 29 LS seats in Madhya Pradesh, leaving Khajuraho to its electoral ally Samajwadi Party (SP).

The party’s LS candidate in Indore however had withdrawn in the dying hours of withdrawal of nomination, depriving Congress of fielding an alternative candidate in the seat.

Hence, Congress had effectively fielded candidates in 27 out of 29 seats in the outgoing LS polls.

The BJP had swept the LS polls in the state by winning all the 29 seats.

State Congress chief Jitu Patwari however sought to downplay the disastrous show by the party in the LS polls in Madhya Pradesh, saying that Congress fared poorly in the last four LS elections and as many assembly polls, barring the 2018 assembly elections when Congress won power in the state.

“Until the disease is diagnosed and accepted, it cannot be cured honestly”, he said here on Saturday.

He dropped hints that the party in the state would be restructured on the basis of the reports by the fact-finding committee.

The committee is scheduled to visit the state again on July five and July six to hold meetings with the LS candidates, MLAs and district and block level leaders to review the party’s poor show in the LS polls before submitting their report to the AICC, a senior Congress functionary said.