Anil Chaudhary at the AICC office, Wednesday. (Photo by Anil Sharma)

A day after he was appointed the chief of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), Anil Chaudhary (44) said his focus will be on rebuilding the party by working in unison with senior leaders and young supporters.

“This will be done only if senior leaders and the youth are there to support me. I cannot do this alone and will need the support of everyone to regain what we have lost during the Assembly elections. I will work rigorously towards bringing the coming generation together for a common goal of the party. Everyone in the party should be respected and given the responsibility of taking it forward,” he told The Indian Express.

Chaudhary started his political career in 1994 as a member of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and was the MLA from Patparganj between 2008 and 2013.

In the 2015 Delhi assembly election, the Congress received 9.65% of the votes polled. This went up to 22.43% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections — it had come second in five of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi.

In this year’s assembly polls, the party’s vote-share plummeted to 4.26%, and as many as 63 of its 66 candidates lost their deposits (each got less than a sixth of the votes polled), leading DPCC chief Subash Chopra to submit his resignation on February 11. In 2015, 62 Congress candidates had lost their deposits.

Highlighting the recent riots that took place in Northeast Delhi, Chaudhary said, “You have seen how people of Delhi are living a life of fear over the past few days. People feel unsafe and are now scared to sit together. I want to make sure there is peace and harmony among them. ”