Harish Rawat expresses embarrassment over failure to guide party to victory in Uttarakhand

By PTI

DEHRADUN: Congress’ poll campaign head for Uttarakhand Harish Rawat on Sunday expressed anguish and an acute sense of embarrassment over his failure to guide the party to victory in the state assembly election, saying he could not rise to the expectations of the party leadership that had reposed its trust in him.

In a Facebook post hours before he left for Delhi to attend a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, Rawat, who also lost from the Lalkuwa seat, said he did not know how he would face party chief Sonia Gandhi.

”How much trust she had in me. All the top leaders of Congress had so much trust in me. All of them expected me to bring the Congress back to power. There must have been some shortcoming on my part because of which I could not meet their expectations,” the 73-year-old former chief minister said.

“The reality is we haven’t just lost but our loss has also thrown up several dangerous indications,” Rawat said.

However, Rawat said the party should think of overcoming the challenges lying ahead.

“We don’t just have to come to power. I believe Congress is the only party that can attain a pan-India presence and emerge as a strong democratic alternative to the BJP.”

“Some piecemeal efforts are being made by some people in that direction but unlike the Congress, they don’t have it in their DNA,” Rawat said.

“But we are politically falling short of something and failing to win the confidence of people again and again. Those who have faith in constitutional democracy have their eyes fixed on the Congress,” he said.

The Congress, which fought under the leadership of Rawat, won just 19 seats against BJP’s 47 out of a total of 70 assembly seats, with political observers attributing the loss to factionalism in the opposition party besides other factors.

The CWC met on Sunday to discuss the party’s poll debacle in five states.

“I pray to the almighty to light a ray of hope in the thickening darkness and show the way that leads to the emergence of Congress as a democratic alternative at the national level,” Rawat said.