JAIPUR: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday said more than the anti-incumbency factor it was differences among partymen that led to the voting out of the Congress governments in the States from power. Instead of keeping party criticism within the organisation, Congressmen tended to discuss it in the open damaging the party's prospects in the elections, she said addressing a workers "political training camp" at Rajiv Nagar in Padampura, 30 kms from the Rajasthan capital.

What the Congress president told the 600-odd gathering of party functionaries from the Pradesh Congress Committee level to the bloc level perhaps applied to all Congress governments that faced defeat in the recent past. But it suited Rajasthan best where the party, which went to polls in 2003 with full confidence of returning to power, lost two-third of the seats it had held.

Being in power was not always the reason for losing elections. "Our own people make critical comments on our own governments. The Congress is a big party. Criticism has to be kept within the organisation," Ms. Gandhi said in her 14-minute speech.

She touched upon national topics such as price rise, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the Right to Information, the relevance of the Congress party in the present and the partymen's need to have faith in the Congress ideology.

"We have to stop the internal squabbles in the party. The differences cannot be treated like enmity to one another," Ms. Gandhi said.

She advised party leaders to continue dialogue to reduce distances.

Talking specifically in the context of Rajasthan, Ms. Gandhi said the party leader would be someone the people wanted. "We have to keep this in mind in Rajasthan. The leader is the one who the people want," she said.

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