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Congress ponders over poll debacle
A pall of gloom descended on the Gandhi Bhavan, party office of Congress, after Warangal bypoll results were announced on Tuesday. With the GHMC elections round the corner, the Congress is now thinking of realignment of the political set up in the State.
Hyderabad: A pall of gloom descended on the Gandhi Bhavan, party office of Congress, after Warangal bypoll results were announced on Tuesday. With the GHMC elections round the corner, the Congress is now thinking of realignment of the political set up in the State.
- Gandhi Bhavan plunges into gloom after the results
- Bruised, battered, it has to rework strategy for GHMC polls
The party office, which was otherwise abuzz with activity at the time of campaigning, wore a deserted look on Tuesday. The national party, which claimed to achieve victory with at least one lakh margin of votes, received a crushing defeat in the bypoll, where 23 candidates were in poll fray.
It has to forfeit its deposits, with less than 1 lakh votes polled for the party. The State leaders, who were always open for analysing the byelection in Warangal, were found nowhere near Gandhi Bhavan and remained unavailable on phones to avoid further embarrassment.
Amongst the seven Assembly segments, nowhere the party was able to achieve majority and was reduced to second position with much wider margin than 2014. Even though the party campaigners had ventured into the Parliamentary constituency, before any other political party, it failed to comprehend the defeat worst than 2014 general election.
With the government’s failed promises, it had tried to expose how the TRS had let down the voters by not implementing any of the assurances it made in the 2014 election manifesto. However, people could not buy their argument, as most of them were believed to have voted again for TRS government’s popular schemes. “People were forced to vote for them.
They threatened during election campaign that the welfare schemes including pensions and developmental activities would not be taken up. Hence is the result,” said Mallu Ravi, Congress party spokesperson. The party rank and file also feels that former MP Sircilla Rajaiah’s family episode and a non-local taking the charge in the form of Sarve Satyanarayana had played havoc in the bypoll.
Most of the women, who had watched the Rajaiah’s daughter-in-law and grandsons’ deaths on TV, have voted against the Congress.The local factor for Sarve Satyanarayana, who was opposed by several top local leaders, proved to be a futile campaign during the last days for the party.
The Congress had also tried to gain from the Telangana sentiment, by inviting former Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar who played crucial role in formation of separate State.
It also rallied other national leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sachin Pilot besides State incharge Digvijay Singh. “We have to seriously ponder over the strategies for the next elections, including GHMC and Narayankhed bypoll,” said a senior leader.
