The Congress on Saturday held two separate meetings to assess the party’s performance in the recently concluded Rajasthan and Mizoram Assembly polls.

The meeting came days after the grand old party’s dismal performance in the Hindi heartland state and the northeastern state.

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Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, flanked by former president Rahul Gandhi and party’s general secretary in-charge of organization KC Venugopal, convened the meetings at the party headquarters here, in presence of senior leaders and in-charges of both the states.

Talking to reporters, Congress’ Rajasthan in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, flanked by state’s caretaker Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and party’s state unit president Govind Singh Dostara, while apprising about their meeting with Kharge,  said, “We had a detailed discussion (on election results). Our vote share is not very less than BJP (in Rajasthan). Many of our candidates lost with a very small margin.”

Congress’ performance was better in Rajasthan as compared to other states, he added.

Randhawa informed that all the leaders said they will start preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and will fight the elections unitedly.

Asked about the accountability for the Congress loss in Rajasthan, the Congress leader said, “We will fix the accountability.”

In Rajasthan, of 199 out of 200 Assembly seats, the Congress which was confident that it would retain the power won 69 constituencies. The BJP uprooted the Gehlot-led government with 115 seats.

Earlier this morning, Congress Mizoram in-charge Bhakta Charan Das while informing about their meeting, said, “We had  a threadbare discussion on every aspect of the elections during the meeting. What had happened and what those things we are going to do in future, we discussed all those things very carefully and intensively.”

Attacking the BJP, he said, “The BJP as a party with communal character entered into Mizoram through the Zoram People’s  Movement (ZPM). That is the most  unholy thing for the interest of the north eastern state.”

“The presence of BJP is negligible in Mizoram, but they have tried their best to come indirectly. They had an alliance with Mizo National Front (MNF) earlier. Then they changed their approach and helped ZPM,” the Congress leader said.

He added, “The ZPM silently connived with with the BJP. Because of the continuous visit of ministers from the Centre and the presence of Assam Chief Minister Himanta  Biswa Sarma that implied that they had solid backing for ZPM.”

Das also said that Congress is going to do much better in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Out of the 40 Assembly constituencies in Mizoram, the ZPM won 27 seats, followed by MNF 10, BJP two and Congress one constituency.

It may be mentioned that on Friday, Kharge held meetings with the leaders of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh over the party’s drubbing in the Assembly polls.