Days after Kapil Sibal courted controversy by raising questions on the poor performance by the Congress in Bihar assembly polls and by-polls in several other states, now P Chidambaram has spoken along the same lines.
In an interview to a Hindi newspaper, Chidambaram said that he was ‘more worried about the by-poll results in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka’ adding that these results ‘show that the party either has no organisational presence on the ground or has been weakened considerably.’
Chidambaram also concluded that the Congress may have fielded candidates on more seats than it deserved.
Chidambaram’s comments come just days after Kapil Sibal told Indian Express that the Congress leadership was turning its back on senior leaders ‘instead of listening to’ them. He had said, “The results are for all to see People of the country, not just in Bihar but wherever by-elections were held, obviously don’t consider the Congress to be an effective alternative.”
Congress could only won 19 out of 70 seats that it had contested in the just-concluded Bihar elections. The party also suffered a rout in by-polls held in states such as Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka among others.
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