New Delhi: A day after the Congress’s second straight defeat in the national election, resignations were flying. Three state chiefs including Raj Babbar, the Congress’s Uttar Pradesh president, sent their resignations to their boss Rahul Gandhi on Friday over the party’s abysmal performance.
Rahul Gandhi is expected to resign on Saturday at a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s top decision-making body.
Rahul Gandhi, besides leading a dud election campaign that failed to win over voters, also lost his traditional constituency Amethi, the Gandhi family stronghold in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress has won 92 seats across the country, while the BJP has scored its “teen sau paar (300-plus)” tally, bettering even its 2014 performance.
The party’s Karnataka campaign manager H K Patil, and Odisha chief Niranjan Patnaik have also resigned.
The Congress has been wiped out in Karnataka and Odisha.
The Congress was reduced to a single seat in 80-seat Uttar Pradesh despite an intense campaign by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rahul Gandhi’s sister and general secretary tasked with the campaign in UP along with Jyotiraditya Scindia. The only seat the party kept was Sonia Gandhi’s Raebareli.
In a tweet on Thursday, Raj Babbar had owned responsibility for the Congress’s debacle in Uttar Pradesh.
“The results are depressing for the Uttar Pradesh Congress. I find myself guilty of not discharging my responsibility in a proper manner,” he had tweeted.
“I will meet the leadership and appraise it of my views. Congratulations to the winners for winning the confidence of the people,” Babbar, a former film actor, said. Babbar also lost from the Fatehpur Sikri parliamentary constituency.
