Clamour for Congress Revamp Likely in Congress Working Committee Meet

New Delhi: Hours before the Congress' highest decision making body, its Working Committee or CWC meets today to take stock of the party's humiliating defeat in the general elections, its seniormost MP in parliament Kamal Nath called for immediate internal elections.

In the sharpest words yet from a Congress leader on the poll debacle, Mr Kamal Nath told NDTV that only internal democracy could end "the culture of patronage".

At the meeting of 34 members today, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi could offer their resignation over the party's debacle, sources said. Mr Gandhi, 43, had led the Congress' campaign, widely criticised as lucklustre especially compared to the electrifying campaign of the BJP's Narendra Modi, who is set to be Prime Minister.

In brief statements after votes were counted, both Mr Gandhi and his mother Sonia, had owned responsibility for the party's performance.

Mr Kamal Nath said there was no question of the Congress accepting the resignation of the Gandhis, saying, "Why blame Rahul alone? He should not resign."

But the role of Rahul Gandhi's key advisers, including Jairam Ramesh, Mohan Gopal, Madhusudan Mistri and Mohan Prakash, may be brought into question at the CWC meeting.

Shell shocked at being reduced to just 44 MPs in the Lok Sabha, down from 206, and the party's worst performance ever, many Congress leaders are now said be a clamouring for surgical action to revamp the party.

Anil Shastri, the son of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and a special invitee to the CWC, is believed to have written a blunt letter to Rahul Gandhi on what went wrong and what needs to be done to get the party back on the rails.

In ten states, the Congress scored a zero - Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Odisha and Rajasthan.

In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, it has got two seats each and in Chhattisgarh one.

The BJP got many more seats in Uttar Pradesh alone than the total tally of Congress.