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New Delhi, Mar 12: The Congress has denied reports that stated Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul Gandhi and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, expected to resign at Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Sunday, taking moral responsibility for the party’s poor performance in the 5 states assembly elections.
“The news story of alleged resignations being based on unnamed sources is completely unfair and incorrect,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala was quoted saying by NDTV.
In Uttar Pradesh which the BJP won decisively, the Congress finished a distant fourth despite Priyanka Gandhi’s extensive campaign. In Punjab, the Congress lost to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after ruling the state for the last five years, while it lost to the BJP in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
The party’s poor performance is bound to pose a serious challenge to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, as he and his sister and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were the only star campaigners seen in this round of assembly polls.
The leaders of G-23, who have been demanding an organisational overhaul, had met Friday evening at the residence of senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to evolve their strategy ahead of the crucial CWC meeting.
Sunday’s meeting is likely to see some fireworks from the G-23 as they had suggested corrective measures after the last round of assembly polls, when the party lost Puducherry and failed to make a mark in Kerala, Assam and West Bengal, but there had been little movement on that front.
A dominant force in the country’s politics for decades, the grand old party’s free fall continued as it lost Punjab to AAP and finished with just two seats out of 403 in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh. The party also lost in Uttarakhand and Manipur.
After the drastic decline in its tally in general elections, it is now left in power only in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and is a very small player in the coalition governments in Maharashtra and Jharkhand.