The Congress Working Committee meeting was held on Tuesday at party president Sonia Gandhi’s residence after a gap of seven months. This was the first such meeting after the party’s massive loss in recent Assembly polls.

Party President Sonia Gandhi, who chaired the meeting, said that the Narendra Modi government had sowed discord in the country in the past three years. “Where there was harmony,there is discord, where there was tolerance there is provocation,” she said according to ANI. Gandhi said the Opposition must be ready to protect the “idea and essence of India”, which she claimed the ruling government was seeking to extinguish.

She claimed that whatever success the Modi government had achieved after coming to power in 2014 came from programmes and projects started by the previous Congress-led government.

At the meeting, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also attacked the government over the prevailing economic situation in the country. “India’s GDP numbers for the fourth quarter and full year of 2016-17 were released a few days ago. lndia’s economic growth has slowed down sharply, driven primarily by the demonetisation announcement of November 2016,” Singh said.

Criticising the government over the poor jobs data, Singh said, “The most worrisome aspect of all this is the impact on job creation. Jobs have been extremely hard to come by for the youth of the nation.”

While Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi attended the meeting, party veterans like P Chidambaram, Ambika Soni and Janardan Dwivedi were among other leaders present.

The CWC met on Tuesday for the first time after the Congress’ loss in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March this year. “Our organisation is weak, our support has eroded, our pro-poor plank has been hijacked and we are yet to come forth with a counter-narrative to take on the BJP,” a senior Congress office-bearer told Scroll.in.

Congress body polls

Meanwhile, organisational polls are due for the Congress party, with the next party president to be elected by October 15, as per the election schedule. The CWC members had met in November last year when they had unanimously pitched for party Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s elevation. Sonia Gandhi had given the meeting a miss, as she was unwell.

Sonia Gandhi has created a record by holding the position of the party president for nearly two decades. Rahul Gandhi was appointed the party’s vice president in January 2013.

Presidential election

On the upcoming Presidential election, the Congress President said that she had met leaders of like-minded parties to form a consensus on the Opposition candidate, and a sub-group of representatives from different parties had been created to look for a way forward.