Mumbai, February 21 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met his colleagues in Mumbai on Saturday and inquired about the party's poor performance in the January 15 Mumbai municipal elections.
He also assessed the current political situation, as well as the steps being taken to strengthen the Congress' position across Maharashtra, party officials said.
Gandhi had earlier in the day appeared before the magistrate's court in Bhiwandi, in neighboring Thane district, to provide a fresh surety in the 2014 defamation case filed against him by an RSS activist. He named Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal as his new guarantor, replacing former Union minister Shivraj Patil, who passed away in December last year.
Gandhi's lunch meeting took place at a suburban hotel before he returned to Delhi. Among those present were Sapkal and Mumbai unit chief and Lok Sabha MP Varsha Gaikwad.
Gandhi questioned the poor performance of the Congress in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections, sources said. The party won only 24 seats in the 227-member BMC, raising questions about whether the decision to contest the elections independently without its Maha Vikas Aghadi allies, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP), was a wise one.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha also urged the Mumbai unit to focus on strengthening the organization at the grassroots level, the sources added.
"Gandhi reviewed the party's position in Mumbai and Maharashtra. He also had a one-on-one meeting with Sapkal about the party organization," they added.