On his first visit to Chhattisgarh after taking over as the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge for the State, Sachin Pilot on January 11 described the party’s shock electoral loss in the Assembly elections as a collective failure.
“The Congress is a national party. When we win elections, it’s everyone’s victory; when we lose an election, it is everyone’s loss. I don’t think any one person can deliver a win or a loss, the entire organisation fights polls,” he said at a press conference in Raipur. The former Union Minister was replying to a question on whether the party had lost power due to a failure of its policies or because of an individual.
Since the election, a bunch of Congress leaders, including a former Minister, have blamed former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and his erstwhile deputy T.S. Singh Deo for the loss, citing factors such as concentration of power and the purported feud between the two senior leaders.
Looking ahead
While Mr. Pilot emphasised the importance of looking towards the future to the upcoming Lok Sabha election, he conceded that Congress workers were hurt after the recent Assembly poll losses in three States, including in Chhattisgarh, and in Rajasthan, where he had played a key role.
On the party’s general election prospects in Chhattisgarh, a State where it has consistently fared poorly compared to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress leader said that national elections were fought on different issues and expressed hope for a better show this time.
On the issue of three top Congress leaders declining the invitation to attend the pran pratistha (consecration ceremony) of Lord Ram’s idol at the newly built temple in Ayodhya on January 22, Mr. Pilot said that if the issue was being politicised in the name of religion, then his party was not in favour of it.
