Top Congress leaders met here on Thursday to discuss the party's plans on seat-sharing with INDIA bloc partners and strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as well as assess the reasons for its defeat in assembly elections in three states.

The discussions took place at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), which was attended by party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi and senior leader Rahul Gandhi among others.

The meeting of the Congress' highest decision-making body is the first after the party lost Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to the BJP.

The Congress has maintained that its morale is not down, even though the results of the assembly polls have been very disappointing and not according to expectations.

The party has held one round of analysis of the poll results, and the CWC is likely to hold further discussions on the issue.

Sources said the top brass of the party is likely to evolve a new agenda to take on the BJP as its key thrust on caste census has failed to click with voters in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The meeting is being held at a time when the challenge before the Congress is to come out with an alternative positive agenda to counter the BJP in the general elections, as its issues of caste census and Adani have not caught the public attention in these states.

Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday told MPs at the parliamentary party meeting that the assembly election results being very disappointing is an understatement as she urged them to channel their disappointment into positivity for the Lok Sabha polls.

This was the first time that Sonia Gandhi had spoken on the recent assembly poll results.

"To say that the assembly election results in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have been very disappointing for our party is an understatement. The Congress president has already had a first round of reviews to understand the reasons for our poor performance and draw the needed lessons for our organisation," she told the MPs.

Sonia Gandhi also said that the Lok Sabha elections will be held in the next few months and "we have our task cut out both as a party in our own right and also as a member of the INDIA bloc." The Congress is also holding a mega rally in Nagpur on the party's foundation day on December 28.

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