Assam PCC president Ripun Bora on Sunday said they would restructure the party to prepare it for the 2021 Assembly polls.

“We will restructure the party to prepare it for the upcoming elections, especially for the 2021 Assembly elections,” he said, adding that the Congress Working Committee (CWC) had empowered its president Rahul Gandhi to go for a structural change of the party.

Bora was trying to keep the morale of party workers high as the 2019 Lok Sabha election results did not go as expected.

The Congress contested in all the 14 seats in the state, but won in Barpeta, Kaliabor and Nowgong.

Bora had earlier said the Congress would win at least eight seats in Assam. In 2014, it had won in Silchar, Kaliabor and Autonomous District seats.

“Now we will be facing a number of elections. There will be byelections to four constituencies. Besides, there will be elections to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation along with various town committees across the state before the 2021 Assembly polls,” he said during a felicitation programme of the three newly-elected Congress MPs here.

Byelections in Assam will be held in Sonari Assembly constituency whose MLA Topon Gogoi has won the Jorhat Lok Sabha seat. Bypolls will also be held as Rangapara MLA Pallab Lochan Das has won the Tezpur seat, Jania MLA Abdul Khaleque won the Barpeta seat and Ratabari MLA Kripanath Mallah won the Karimganj seat.

“Now, we should not talk about anything that can lower our morale. We should be united,” Bora, who has faced a revolt by a section of party leaders, said.

On Wednesday, a day before counting, a delegation of party leaders had met Congress president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, seeking replacement of Bora and raising a number of allegations against him, including choosing Lok Sabha candidates in lieu of money.

Bora, however, denied the allegations and said the delegation was led by a few “disgruntled and frustrated” leaders.

He told Congress workers that only in Karimganj and Autonomous District constituencies, the vote share of the Congress dropped from what it was in 2014 while in the remaining 12 constituencies, the party recorded a rise in vote share.

Bora said although the Congress is a secular party, it had failed to take the message to the people while the BJP succeeded in communal polarisation in the state before the Lok Sabha elections.