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Karnataka, oil price shadow on Saturday's CWC meet

May 30, 2008 15:44 IST

With the party suffering yet another electoral defeat -- this time in Karnataka -- a meeting of the Congress Working Committee will be held in New Delhi tomorrow in apparent moves to get its act together.

As a series of elections in several states are on the cards this year followed by the Lok Sabha elections, the party has to set its house in order on a war-footing.

Party chief Sonia Gandhi has convened the meeting at a time when rising inflation and record international prices of crude oil have created serious concerns before the Congress as also the coalition government.

There are pressures on the government to review petrol and diesel prices urgently.

This will be the first meeting of the Congress's apex policy-making body after the election results in Karnataka which saw the Bharatiya Janata Party gaining power in a state in the South.

Gandhi has already discussed the Karnataka poll outcome with some senior party leaders.

Gandhi also had a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday on rising crude prices and its implications for the government and the options it has to face the situation.

The Congress has been defeated in the elections in as many as 13 states including some in which it lost power since the United Progressive Alliance government was formed at the Centre in 2004. Its latest defeats were in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

A section of teh partymen have already been demanding that accountability needed to be fixed for the defeat in Karnataka.

Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir will have assembly polls this year while the Lok Sabha elections are scheduled for next year.

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