Harish Rawat says Congress lost U'khand 'due to weakness' after blaming choice of seats

After Congress’s dismal performance in the recently concluded Uttarakhand elections, former Chief Minister Harish Rawat had blamed the party’s screening committee for fielding him from the Lalkaun Assembly seat, which he lost. Day after venting it out on the Congress leadership, Rawat has now admitted that the party lost due to its 'weakness.'

"Some weaknesses always come up in a political party. We need to overcome those weaknesses. We were all sure of winning Uttarakhand. We lacked somewhere hence we could not win," the Congress veteran told reporters on Monday, accepting the defeat. 

He also apologised to every member and leader in the Congress working committee and to the public for the poll drubbing. 

In the recently-concluded elections, the BJP stormed back to power in Uttarakhand, winning 47 seats while Congress was restricted to just 19 seats in the 70-seat Uttarakhand Assembly.

'Decision to contest from Lalkuan was wrong but collective'

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Rawat blamed the Congress for not letting him contest from Ramnagar - his preferred seat in the 2022 poll. He accepted responsibility for the loss but blamed the poor choice of seats given to candidates. 

"I expressed my desire to contest from Ramnagar - a constituency I wanted to contest in 2017 too. But I was told to switch to Lalkuwa. As everyone agreed to it, I reluctantly accepted. I told myself that if I have to embrace the impending defeat in the interest of the party, then I cannot run away from it," he wrote.

Referring to his social media post on the changing of seats, Rawat said, "It was a wrong decision, but it was a collective one. A colleague brought in up, so I clarified. Any individual cannot be blamed for it. Ramnagar or Lalkuan, it was a collective decision."

Congress veteran Harish Rawat loses with a wide margin

Amounting to a major setback for the Congress, one of its most prominent faces, 72-year-old Harish Rawat, lost the Lalkuan constituency in Uttarakhand's Nainital. Rawat lost the Lalkuan seat BJP's Mohan Singh Bisht by a margin of over 14,000 votes.

In the 2017 Uttarakhand Assembly election, the Harish Rawat-led Congress government had lost power after BJP won 57 seats. Moreover, Harish Rawat lost from both seats that he contested.