Congress hits the panic button: Rattled by first three phases of election, Rahul calls emergency strategy meeting
It's taken three phases of elections voting in 100 constituencies for the Congress to see the writing on the wall.
Alarmed by an internal assessment that shows the Congress has fared far worse than expected and is in danger of being pushed out of the game in the Lok Sabha polls by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has stepped in to stem the tide in the 350-odd seats that the party is contesting.
According to top party sources, Rahul has asked Congress managers to deploy central observers in each of the 350-plus seats that will go to polls in the remaining six phases of the elections to galvanise party workers and give a final push to the campaign.
Congress sources said the move to deploy the observers came after a strategy session chaired on Thursday by Rahul following feedback from the 91 Lok Sabha constituencies that voted in the third phase, including seven in Delhi.
The feedback included the worst-case scenario of the polls becoming a contest between the BJP and other parties like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and regional players, moving the Congress to the third position.
In Delhi, the Congress is hoping that Ajay Maken would win in the New Delhi seat, thus providing the Grand Old Party with some sort of a face-saver.
The sources said internal reports and assessments had indicated a majority of Congress candidates in the 91 seats that witnessed voting on Thursday may lose out to the BJP, which is apparently gaining more from the pro-Modi sentiment among voters and not as much because of the persons it has fielded.
"We need to pull out all stops now," said a Congress strategist familiar with the meeting chaired by Rahul.
"The party's observers will visit each of the constituencies to sense which way the political wind is blowing and will play a role in trying to change it in our favour," another Congress source told Mail Today.
A helping hand According to sources, the central observers will also help candidates in their campaign, and ensure there is cohesiveness among local leaders and workers.
The sources acknowledged that infighting in many states could limit the Congress's electoral prospects.
"The observers will ensure that differences are ironed out," the Congress strategist said. Sources said in a tough election where each seat counts, feedback from the central observers will be monitored by Rahul's key aides and woven into a more aggressive campaign in the days to come.
The Congress had recently been buoyed by opinion polls that showed the party and its allies would bag around 120 seats, but internal reports of the poor performance of party's candidates has the top leadership worried again.
The scenario is especially depressing in the national capital, where Congress managers expected that votes of Muslims and weaker sections would return to the party as they were fed up with the AAP experiment.
But Congress managers said the party was still unable to address the widespread public anger in Delhi, where the party was wiped out in the Assembly polls of last December.
Read more: Congress hits the panic button: Rattled by first three phases of election, Rahul calls emergency strategy meeting | Mail Online
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It's taken three phases of elections voting in 100 constituencies for the Congress to see the writing on the wall.
Alarmed by an internal assessment that shows the Congress has fared far worse than expected and is in danger of being pushed out of the game in the Lok Sabha polls by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has stepped in to stem the tide in the 350-odd seats that the party is contesting.
According to top party sources, Rahul has asked Congress managers to deploy central observers in each of the 350-plus seats that will go to polls in the remaining six phases of the elections to galvanise party workers and give a final push to the campaign.
Congress sources said the move to deploy the observers came after a strategy session chaired on Thursday by Rahul following feedback from the 91 Lok Sabha constituencies that voted in the third phase, including seven in Delhi.
The feedback included the worst-case scenario of the polls becoming a contest between the BJP and other parties like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and regional players, moving the Congress to the third position.
In Delhi, the Congress is hoping that Ajay Maken would win in the New Delhi seat, thus providing the Grand Old Party with some sort of a face-saver.
The sources said internal reports and assessments had indicated a majority of Congress candidates in the 91 seats that witnessed voting on Thursday may lose out to the BJP, which is apparently gaining more from the pro-Modi sentiment among voters and not as much because of the persons it has fielded.
"We need to pull out all stops now," said a Congress strategist familiar with the meeting chaired by Rahul.
"The party's observers will visit each of the constituencies to sense which way the political wind is blowing and will play a role in trying to change it in our favour," another Congress source told Mail Today.
A helping hand According to sources, the central observers will also help candidates in their campaign, and ensure there is cohesiveness among local leaders and workers.
The sources acknowledged that infighting in many states could limit the Congress's electoral prospects.
"The observers will ensure that differences are ironed out," the Congress strategist said. Sources said in a tough election where each seat counts, feedback from the central observers will be monitored by Rahul's key aides and woven into a more aggressive campaign in the days to come.
The Congress had recently been buoyed by opinion polls that showed the party and its allies would bag around 120 seats, but internal reports of the poor performance of party's candidates has the top leadership worried again.
The scenario is especially depressing in the national capital, where Congress managers expected that votes of Muslims and weaker sections would return to the party as they were fed up with the AAP experiment.
But Congress managers said the party was still unable to address the widespread public anger in Delhi, where the party was wiped out in the Assembly polls of last December.
Read more: Congress hits the panic button: Rattled by first three phases of election, Rahul calls emergency strategy meeting | Mail Online
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Rahul ke khilaf koi saazish to nahin
