New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi has convened an urgent meeting of the Congress Working Committee on Saturday to discuss the party’s humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, amid speculation that he would offer his resignation, accepting full responsibility for the party’s poor show.
Insiders say he is insisting on quitting since Thursday but his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra persuaded him to take the decision after the CWC discusses the debacle. “Leave it up to me and the CWC,” was his cryptic reply on Thursday, when asked about his resignation at a press conference.
The top Congress leaders constituting the CWC, the highest policy making body of the party, will deliberate on the reasons of the humiliating loss in the Lok Sabha elections for the second time in a row and assess what went wrong.
On Thursday, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala was quick to deny reports of Rahul’s resignation while other party leaders on Friday stressed that Rahul cannot be blamed for the results as his leadership helped the Congress effectively challenge the wrong doings of Prime Minister Modi.
As the Congress debacle led to murmurs about accountability, reports came in of the party’s Uttar Pradesh chief Raj Babbar, Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik and Karnataka unit’s H K Patil sending in their resignations, claiming moral responsibility. “The results are depressing for the Uttar Pradesh Congress. I feel guilty of not discharging my responsibility,” Babbar, who lost by a margin of 4.95 lakh votes from Fatehpur Sikri, tweeted in Hindi.
Congress has got just one seat in Orissa. Meanwhile, one party leader has given a critical assessment of the performance. “Without question the Congress has not been able to feel the pulse of the nation,” said Gaurav Gogoi, who is in the slender group of Congress candidates who won. Across the country, the Congress won just 52 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats.