New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS): The Congress core group, including party president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will discuss the party's big defeat in the Oct 13 by-polls at a meeting Friday, party sources said.

Gandhi will preside over the meeting, to be attended by the prime minister and senior ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee, A.K. Antony and P. Chidambaram, as well as other leaders. Manmohan Singh returns home Wednesday night from South Africa.

The core group is likely to study the preliminary reports prepared by the general secretaries on the poll results, party insiders told IANS.

The Congress and its allies lost all the four by-elections - to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat in Haryana and to the assembly seats of Khadakwasla (Maharashtra), Daraunda (Bihar) and Banswada (Andhra Pradesh) - the results of which were declared Monday.

The results of two other seats, Tiruchirapalli West (Tamil Nadu) and Indira Nagar (Puducherry), are due Thursday. But the chances of either the Congress or its ally DMK winning these seats are dim, political analysts said.

To take forward the discussions at the core group meeting, a meeting of the extended Congress Working Committee will be held here after Diwali, Congress sources said.

The working committee will deliberate on not just the current situation in the wake of the by-poll debacle but also chalk out strategy for the coming assembly polls, especially in Uttar Pradesh, they added.