Sheila Dikshit forms committee to examine why party lost in Delhi

Congress Chief Sheila Dikshit has formed a committee to look into the reasons behind the humiliating defeat of her party on all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital.

The five member committee will undertake an “in-depth” enquiry into the reasons behind the defeat of the Congress candidates in the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochar said.

The five-member committee include Parvez Hashmi, AK Walia, Yoganand Shastri, national spokesperson Pawan Khera and Jaikishan, he said.

The committee will submit its report to the Delhi Congress president in ten days.

The committee will not only probe the reasons behind the party’s defeat, but also suggest steps to strengthen the organisation to ensure party’s victory in the 2020 Assembly elections, he said.

The Congress candidates lost massively to the BJP on all seven seats in Delhi. Party’s celebrity candidate Vijender Singh lost his deposit in South Delhi constituency.

Dikshit, who contested against Delhi BJP chief and sitting MP Manoj Tiwari in North East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, lost by over 3.66 lakh votes.

A saving grace for the party, however, was that it replaced the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) as a direct rival to the BJP candidates on five of the seven parliamentary constituencies.

Also, the vote percentage of Congress in Delhi — 22.5 per cent, was more than that of the AAP (18.1 pe rcent).

The BJP, however, got over 56 per cent votes which was more than combined vote share of the Congress and the AAP.