Disappointing: Congress on assembly election results in 3 NE states

The Congress on Thursday said the assembly election results in the northeastern states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya were "disappointing" for it, but touted its victory in three assembly bypolls in as many states as "encouraging". Congress general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh said the party would soon assess the assembly poll results and take corrective measures to strengthen the organisation. "Our performance will be strong five years later," he said, pointing to the fact that the party fielded youth candidates in the northeastern states this time with an eye on the future. The party won just five of the all 60 seats it contested in Maghalaya and failed to open its account in Nagaland where it fielded candidates in 23 out of 60 seats. In Tripura where the Congress contested the election in alliance with the Left parties, it contested in 13 seats and bagged just three seats out of a total of 60. 

Ramesh said the party has done well in by-elections in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu where its candidates won seats which were traditionally held by its rivals, but the performance in the assembly polls in the three northeastern states were disappointing. He said the Congress won the Sagardighi assembly bypoll in West Bengal, Kasba Peth in Maharashtra and Erode East in Tamil Nadu. Ramesh said the party won its first seat in the West Bengal Assembly and wrested the Kasba assembly constituency in Maharashtra from the BJP after almost 30 years and termed the victories "very encouraging". Ramesh said the party hoped to get a majority with the Left in Tripura but that did not happen. He hoped the party would improve its vote share in Nagaland and Meghalaya, where all its MLAs in the previous assembly were poached by the TMC. He said in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland the local leadership mattered and "to say that our performance in Northeast was not good because national leaders did not campaign is wrong".