Sonia meets AK Walia after municipal poll defeat

With Congress' defeat in the municipal polls in the Capital, party president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday met senior Delhi minister AK Walia for discussion.

With Congress' defeat in the municipal polls in the Capital, party president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday met senior Delhi minister AK Walia for discussion.

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Sources said Walia apprised Gandhi about the possible reasons for the electoral drubbing, seen as a precursor to the assembly elections in the city scheduled for next year.

Today's meeting assumes significance as the Congress high command chose to discuss the reasons for the defeat with Walia, who is not known to have best of relations with chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had trumped the Congress to retain its hold in the Delhi municipal polls by winning the north and east corporations and emerging as the single-largest party in the south Delhi corporation.

The BJP victory came as a shock to the party as Dikshit had decided to split the municipal corporation just ahead of the polls.

Dikshit had pushed hard to trifurcate the MCD despite stiff resistance from a number of party leaders who had warned that splitting the 53-year-old body ahead of the polls will cost the party dear.

In her reaction, Dikshit rejected suggestions that municipal poll results were a referendum on her government and a setback to Congress, saying "this was not my election. It was the MCD elections."