New Delhi, May 10 (IANS): A crucial meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) began here on Monday with the discussion on party's poor performance in the recently-held Assembly polls and election to the new party chief.

Addressing the meeting, party chief Sonia Gandhi said : "This CWC meeting has been convened to discuss the results of the recently-held Assembly polls. We have to take note of our serious setbacks. To say that we are deeply disappointed is to make an understatement."

"I intend to set up a small panel to look at every aspect that caused such reverses and report back very quickly. We need to candidly understand why in Kerala and Assam we failed to dislodge the incumbent governments, and why in West Bengal we had drawn a complete blank.

These will yield uncomfortable lessons, but if we do not face up to the reality, if we do not look the facts in the face, we will not draw the right lessons," she said.

"There is another important issue on which I would like your guidance. When we met on January 22, we had decided that the process for electing a Congress president would be completed by the end of June. The election authority chairperson Madhusudan Mistri has prepared a schedule. Venugopal will read it out to you after our discussion on Covid-19 and the election results".

The General Secretaries - Jitender Singh for Assam, Tariq Anwar for Kerala, in charge Dinesh Gundurao for Tamil Nadu & Puducherry and Jitin Prasada for West Bengal - to make their presentations.

"Finally, we can discuss the election to the new Congress chief," Gandhi added.