Sonia expresses anguish over Chhattisgarh developments

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday expressed "anguish" over the developments in Chhattisgarh involving former chief minister Ajit Jogi and said he should not have written a letter to the governor extending support to a splinter group of Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs.

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She said it was a wrong move on Jogi's part "in the face of a clear verdict of the people and the fact that he had ceased to be the leader of the Congress Legislative Party."

Gandhi was addressing a general body meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party in New Delhi.

Party members from both Houses of Parliament attended the meeting, which coincided with Gandhi's 58th birthday.
 
Referring to the sting operation that caught senior BJP leader, Dilip Singh Judeo, accepting bribe, Gandhi said the BJP seems to be more interested in who is responsible for the video than the "fact" that its minister was caught on camera accepting money.

"We need to watch very carefully whether BJP allows CBI to investigate the matter in a free and fair manner," she added.

Expressing "disappointment" over recent results of assembly polls in five states, Gandhi said: "We accept the verdict of the people with humility and we will play our role of opposition diligently and constructively.

"We all have to draw appropriate lessons from our defeat in these three states [Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and
Rajasthan] and prepare ourselves better for many challenges that lay ahead," she said.