ACCEPTING the people’s verdict with “humility”, top leadership of the Congress on Sunday (December 8) pledged to transform the party ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha polls for which it would announce its prime ministerial candidate “at the opportune time”.
Stating that the party was “very disappointed” over the assembly results in four states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said there was a need to do “deep introspection”.
Gandhi and her son Rahul, party vice president, met journalists at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi to acknowledge the victory of “our opponents” whom she congratulated.
“Obviously people are unhappy. Otherwise they would not have given the results that they gave,” she said.
Briefly analysing the causes for the defeat, Gandhi said there were a number of reasons, which included price rise and different issues.
Asked whether these results would have a bearing on the next Lok Sabha polls, Sonia Gandhi said, “General elections are quite different. People in state elections do focus on personality at the state level, at leaders who are likely to lead them.”
However, in national elections “people look at the person who is likely to guide them and govern them at the national level. The issues will be slightly different because at the state level, the issues are localised. At the national level, there are national issues,” the Congress chief said.
“It goes without saying that we are very very disappointed at the results but we accept the verdict of the people with all humility. We congratulate our opponents for winning the elections,” she said.
Both the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi said that that Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit had “worked hard” and “a great deal of work was done”.
She also did not hide her disappointment at the party’s thorough drubbing in Rajasthan, where it was in power.
“In states like Rajasthan, we all thought that our chief minister had run some good programme so again there is a question mark,” the Congress president said.
