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More 'introspection' on the cards for Congress

A Congress committee set up to study the party's worst-ever electoral debacle met representatives from Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan today and decided to tour different states next month to assess the "ground situation" there.

The committee headed by senior Congressman A K Antony will submit its report to party president Sonia Gandhi by November 30 after touring the states for getting a first-hand picture.

One of the committee's members, party MP Mani Shankar Aiyar, told reporters that they met partymen in four sub-groups today, hearing them or receiving written assessments. He said the committee would unearth "the truth", however bitter it be.

Among those the committee interacted with today were legislators, defeated candidates, and state and district-level office-bearers.

The committee will visit Lucknow on November 11 and 12 to conduct the same exercise and meet partymen from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The next day it will travel to Bhopal. On November 14, it will go to Hyderabad to elicit views from partymen in Andhra Pradesh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala and Karnataka. It will visit Bhubaneswar and Calcutta on November 15 and 16, and Imphal and Guwahati on November 17 and 18.

Though Aiyar declined to comment on the nature of questions asked and the replies from partymen, party sources said Haryana politicians blamed the Congress leadership extending support to and subsequently withdrawing it from the Bansi Lal government, coupled with factional fights, for the rout.

Other members in the introspection committee are: P M Sayeed, Prithviraj Chauhan, Santosh Chowdhary, Motilal Vora, K A Sangtam, Nirmal Khatri and Jagdish Tytler.

UNI

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