Patna, Feb. 9: Bihar Congress today held an analytical exercise with its Assembly election candidates to find out the reasons behind its historic defeat. The meet came close on the heels of a similar exercise with the party’s district presidents a fortnight ago.

The review meeting, chaired by Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Choudhary Mehboob Ali Qaiser, was attended by 64 of 89 candidates for the first and second phase, including a sitting MLA, Abbas Alam, from Kasba in Purnea district.

The party could manage to get just four MLAs in the new Assembly against nine in the previous House. The party, which bit the dust in the last year’s Assembly elections, wants to start from the scratch for which it has pulled up its socks to strengthen the moribund organisational structure right up to panchayat-level by actively participating in the three-tier panchayat elections scheduled to be held in April-May this year.

“We will not just support candidates in every panchayat but also actively participate in canvassing and campaigning for them. It will certainly rejuvenate the party’s organisational structure,” BPCC spokesman Vinod Sharma told The Telegraph.

Sharma said the party would organise public meetings in every block along with block and district presidents and the candidates who contested the Assembly elections.

“The public meeting will begin from the state president’s home district, Saharsa, from February 15. During the meetings, the party will go to the people telling them about the party’s ideology and the Centre’s welfare schemes,” Sharma added.