It is fair to wonder if the UPA caused the decline of Congressional fortunes, Manish Tewari said. (File)
New Delhi:
Rumblings in Congress emerged on Friday with some of its leaders looking to introspect on the party’s electoral losses and a former Union Minister asking if the UPA had been “sabotaged” from within before the 2019 elections in Lok Sabha.
Requests for an honest assessment surfaced at a meeting of congressional deputies Rajya Sabha on Thursday attended by party leader Sonia Gandhi.
Some young MPs, including Rajeev Satav, the AICC in charge of Gujarat, reportedly demanded at the meeting that the link between the performance of the UPA government and the electoral downfall of Congress be examined.
Reacting to domestic discontent, former Union Minister Manish Tewari said on Friday that while it is valid to question whether the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) caused the decline of Congressional fortunes, it is also important to determine if the UPA was sabotaged from within. .
“Was the UPA responsible for the decline of Fortunes of Congress in 2014 is a valid question and needs to be addressed? Equally valid was the UPA sabotaged from within? The 2019 defeat must also be analyzed, ”he wrote on Twitter.
Mr Tewari said no charges against the Congress-led UPA had stood the test of the law, even after six years of resignation.
He was referring to the alleged corruption in the allocation of 2G spectrum, which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used as a major poll board against Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Mr Tewari’s public remarks came a day after some MPs called for introspection within the party and whether Congress was paying for the follies during the UPA’s tenure.
Sources said requests for a resolution of the leadership issue in Congress were also raised at Thursday’s meeting and the division between the party’s old guard and young leaders was evident.
Congress saw young people become “disenchanted” with the dominant power structure in the party with the former MP and a longtime confidant of Rahul Gandhi Jyotiraditya Scindia who left to join the BJP this year.
Another young Turkish man Sachin Pilot, the former chief deputy minister of Rajasthan, held up a banner of revolt against his own government in the state, causing consternation among the base of the big old party.
Congress, however, rejected reports of disagreement within the party, calling them “fiction” and the product of the “BJP propaganda factory.”
Asked about the anxieties that prevail between the older and younger leaders, party spokesman Jaiveer Shergill said: “As a spokesperson for a national party, we only respond to facts and not to fiction. “
“The stories about the internal rumblings within the Congress party and the struggle between the young and the old guards are a figment of the imagination, fiction and a product of the BJP propaganda factory, simply unleashed in the market for cover their flaws and failures in the country’s health infrastructure and national security, ”he said at a virtual press conference.
Mr Shergill said that instead of focusing on the “so-called internal struggles” of Congress, which exist, it would be better for the BJP to focus on the coronavirus and the country’s fight against China.
“Congress is united. We will emerge stronger in 2024 and silence all our critics,” he said.
Asked about the requests for soul-searching, Mr Shergill said the party had neither shied away from introspecting its electoral losses nor taking responsibility.
Whether it was a victory or a defeat, Congress has always introspected and introspected its voting strategy, its electoral victories and losses. We have always won with humility and have learned from our losses. “, did he declare.
