Restructure calls grow louder in Cong

 After the poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, there are growing demands within the Congress for a “fundamental restructuring” of the organisation to empower its “sharpest campaigners”.

Former Union minister Milind Deora fired the first salvo saying “fact-checking” Prime Minister Narendra Modi or the NDA cannot be the only strategy for the Congress which required to give an alternative narrative built on the party's strengths of “collective experience and leadership”.

Another former Union minister Anil Shastri faulted the Congress for overemphasising communalism and demonetisation as issues for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
This, Shastri said, was used as a tool by the BJP to polarise the electorate on communal lines.

Shastri, a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee, pointed out that former defence minister A K Antony in his analysis of the Lok Sabha poll debacle had said that the Congress was perceived to be appeasing the minorities.

“The whole world knows that the Congress is a secular party. Why do we have to harp on this again and again? Who are we trying to convince,” asked Shastri.

The resignation of AICC general secretary B K Hariprasad, accepting responsibility for the Congress loss in the panchayat elections in Odisha, is also expected to put pressure on the leadership to go in for the long-pending restructuring of the organisation.

After the Lok Sabha debacle, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul Gandhi had offered to resign but this was rejected by the Congress Working Committee.

On Saturday, All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijaya Singh had rejected suggestions that Rahul Gandhi should step down owning up responsibility for the debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.