The Congress panel that comprises senior party leaders Zubair Khan and KL Sharma started held assembly segment-wise consultations on Friday. They tried to ascertain why Rahul Gandhi was handed a humiliating defeat in his family bastion, Amethi. The conclusion that the panel drew was unsurprising considering it deflected all the blame to SP-BSP and shielded Rahul Gandhi from taking any part of the blame.
The panel has decided that Rahul Gandhi’s crushing defeat in Amethi at the hands of BJP MP Smriti Irani can be attributed to non-cooperation from the SP and the BSP that formed an alliance to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The report says that even though SP and BSP did not field candidates from Amethi, the ground cadre did not help the Congress garner votes for Rahul Gandhi.
Khan is AICC secretary and an aide of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, while Sharma is UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s representative in Rae Bareli and has worked closely in Amethi too.
The eventual blame has been placed on the local units of Akhilesh Yadav run SP and Mayawati led BSP for not helping in Rahul Gandhi’s election in Amethi.
In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it was rather evident that the SP-BSP alliance leaving out Congress in Uttar Pradesh was nothing but shadow-boxing to get caste arithmetic right. While SP was wooing Muslims and Yadavs, BSP was wooing Dalits, the Congress, according to their strategy, would be free to woo the upper caste Hindus.
With their shadow-boxing failing, the claws are out and Congress seems to be going all out to protect Rahul Gandhi who has been throwing a tantrum ever since the poll debacle where BJP ended up bagging a thumping majority of 303 Lok Sabha seats.
Amethi that has been a Dynasty bastion for long was turned by fiesty Smriti Irani who ended up defeating Rahul Gandhi. The angst of Amethi against Rahul Gandhi was evident when several residents asserted that they don’t want to empower Muslims in the area by voting for the Congress party.
Interestingly, while the District Committee President of Amethi has stepped down taking responsibility, the Congress still seems to be shielding Rahul Gandhi from taking any responsibility of the poll debacle not just in Amethi but overall.
