Chin up, look to win 2014 elections: Sonia tells party MPs

Congress party President Sonia Gandhi today said she would not tolerate any indiscipline within the party since unity would be a deciding factor in the general elections of 2014 and urged the party’s MPs to work towards ensuring the party’s growth. In her address to the party’s MPs in the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meet today, Sonia Gandhi asked her party members to gear up for the 2014 general elections. [caption id=“attachment_303480” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] “We must shed all manner of factional behaviour and fight as one disciplined team. That will be the single most important factor to decide whether we win or not,” she reportedly said. Urging her party members to expose the Opposition’s “double-speak” and their “obstructive behaviour” in the Parliament, Sonia Gandhi said, that the government must defend criticism and bring their developments to the fore. “It is fashionable to criticise the government, but we must not allow criticism to deflect us. We must speak forcefully and with confidence on what we have achieved and there is much we have to show despite difficult economic times,” she told the MPs. On NCTC, the Congress President said that there is a need for greater interaction between Centre and states. In her last meeting with the party MPs she had asked them not be defeatist and that there was every reason to be satisfied with what Congress has achieved in the recent polls. Party spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters that the party president had told the MPs to be outspoken about the reforms the UPA government had brought about during its two terms in power. She also asked the MPs to ensure corruption in government schemes was weeded out to ensure the benefits of government policies reached people, he said. The meet comes in the backdrop of the Antony report being submitted on the recent poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh. The panel which was constituted to study poll reverses suffered by the party in the recent assembly elections in five states was submitted on Monday. It had attributed the loss to poor ticket distribution, and nepotism and the failure to fight the perception that the Congress was corrupt. Gandhi also spoke about the losses in the recent Assembly elections, Dwivedi said adding that she had expressed disappointment over the losses in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Goa. “She said that it was ok that the party lost in UP because the party’s vote share had increased,” Dwivedi said. The poll campaign in the state was spearheaded by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi who had also claimed responsibility for the party’s poor show in the elections.