NEW DELHI, May 9 (Agencies): Asking partymen to draw lessons from the previous polls, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday said leaders must shed factional behaviour and fight as one disciplined team as the party braces to face a series of state elections in the coming months.
“We must all shed all manner of factional behaviour, and fight as one disciplined team at all levels. That will be the single-most important factor to decide whether we win or lose.
“People look to us — but we need to show them our commitment and our unity if we are to convert this sentiment into electoral victories,” Gandhi said while addressing a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party in New Delhi, which was also attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Commenting on the elections results in the five states including Uttar Pradesh, where the party could not perform as expected, Gandhi said, “While we can take satisfaction in the fact that we returned to power in Manipur for the third time and formed the government in Uttarakhand, the results in Punjab and Goa are very disappointing.
“In Uttar Pradesh, even though we did not perform as well as we had hoped to, we increased our vote share quite considerably and were seen as a serious player for the first time in 22 years. Of course there is much work to be done there as in other states.”
The CPP meeting has come a few days after a high-power committee of the party led AK Antony that reviewed the party`s performance in the five states, submitted its report to Gandhi.
She said with a series of state elections approaching in the coming months, the partymen “must draw upon lessons of the previous polls.”