Rahul Gandhi to analyse UP poll outcome at party meet

Tuesday, April 3, 2012: With the debacle in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls coming as a shock to the Congress, Rahul Gandhi will be analysing the outcome at a meeting of party leaders on April 6 in a move to set the house in order ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Newly elected party MLAs as also MPs from the state have been called for the much-talked about meeting which was earlier scheduled to take place last week. This will be the first formal review meeting of the U P polls by Gandhi, who has owned up the responsibility for the defeat.
Candidates, who lost despite polling 20,000 votes and above, have also been called for a preliminary meeting with Gandhi on April five, party sources said.
Gandhi had himself led the campaign in the state after being instrumental in securing 22 of the 80 seats in the Lok Sabha polls from the state in 2009 which was seen as a revival of the organisation.
Gandhi’s Mission UP 2012 collapsed for a variety of reasons as it won 28 of 403 seats in the assembly elections. Party chief Sonia Gandhi had in her initial reaction ascribed the debacle to poor organisation, absence of strong local leadership as also wrong selection of candidates.
“We will have to sit down and look at the situation and the results in every single state and then together work out a plan to correct the mistakes we have made,” the Congress chief had said after the electoral outcome.
Party sources said that the candidates who had lost the Lok Sabha polls despite securing more than one lakh votes have also been called for the preliminary meeting being held by Gandhi on April five.
Uttar Pradesh is the politically most crucial state and is also the home turf of the Gandhi-Nehru family.