Survival of Cong minus Gandhi family leadership possible: Kabil Sibal

New Delhi: Former Union Minister and member of Congress ginger group G-23, Kapil Sibal, said the defeat the Grand Old Party suffered in the recently held Assembly Elections has not surprised him.

In an interview given to The Indian Express, he implied that the continuous losses in the elections are found to be obvious in many reasons, particularly due to the infighting within the party.

The party has been facing its downward trend since 2014, and the leadership is found to be ineffective in countering the external and internal threats, he said. He lamented that people who were loyal to the party at the core had left the Congress, and the trend is still there.

Pointing out the number of workers who were MPs and MLAs who left the Congress since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014, Sibal said that no political party might have faced exodus to such an extent as the Congress did.

Nearly 177 MPs and MLAs and 222 candidates have left the Congress since 2014, he said.

Taking into the consideration of vote share of the Congress in the UP elections, which is 2.33% per cent, Sibal said it is nothing but an ineptness of the party that had failed to connect with the electorate.

Sibal believes the absence of accountability, decreasing acceptability and little attempt to increase accessibility are the key issues the party has been facing since 2014.

Responding to the Congress Working Committee's decision to hold a Chintan Shivi or an Analysis on the reasons for the debacle, Sibal said if a political party and its leadership could not figure out the reasons for the failure even after eight years, they might be living in cuckoo land.

Sibal said he and like-minded people in the party do not believe a leadership change is detrimental to the party.There is a genuine feeling among some in the party that the leadership minus Gandhi family will create a survival issue for the Congress, he said, adding that it would be otherwise if it becomes business as usual.

He insisted on the reform of processes and the revival of the Congress to take the party to its glory. Sibal also affirmed that he is a true Congressman at the core and will never join another party.

"I will never, will never join another party and, over my dead body, the BJP. I will remain in my thoughts and actions a true Congressman, but I cannot see the Congress decline and lose its glory in this fashion because people are not willing to listen," he told The Indian Express.