Be ready for future battles, Sonia tells partymen

The Congress chief expressed disappointment over Gujarat poll results and asked partymen to prepare for bigger battles.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi today expressed disappointment over the crushing defeat of the party in Gujarat Assembly elections and asked the partymen to take it as an opportunity to prepare themselves for "bigger battles" in future.

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"We respect the verdict of the people. Of course, we are disappointed by the results but there is no room for despondency ... Let us treat this as an opportunity to prepare ourselves for bigger battles that lie ahead of us", Gandhi said addressing the general body meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) here.

Gandhi, the chairperson of the CPP, told party MPs of the two Houses of Parliament that electoral ups and downs were inevitable in democratic polity but the Gujarat Assembly results reveal the "nature and magnitude of the challenge that awaits us as we need to regroup and revitalise ourselves".

Asserting that the party has started analysing the reasons for the party's "poor performance", Gandhi said, "We must and we will identify, acknowledge and rectify our shortcomings, both real and perceived".

Thanking all those who voted for the party in Gujarat, Gandhi asked partymen to "concentrate single-mindedly on the tasks ahead and pass on, steadfast in our commitment to secularism, anchored in our vision of economic growth with social harmony and dedicated to combating communalism and bigotry of every kind".