Jharkhand Congress chief Ajoy Kumar resigned from his post on Monday taking ‘moral responsibility’ for party’s poor performance in Lok Sabha elections in the state, days after the PM Modi-led NDA swept to power bagging 352 of 542 seats.
“PCC chief has taken moral responsibility of the party’s performance and sent his resignation on May 24. However, party’s performance was not that bad as we won Singhbhum comfortably and lost Khunti and Lohardaga by a wafer thin margin,” said Jharkhand Congress spokesperson Alok Dubey.
Congress lost in Khunti by 1,400 votes and Lohardaga with 10,000 votes.
While Congress president Rahul Gandhi himself offered to quit, which was rejected, at the CWC meeting on Saturday, a bunch of resignation landed on his table with four state leaders quitting or offering to quit on Friday.
Uttar Pradesh, state from where the Congress president lost in shock defeat, state unit chief Raj Babbar sent his resignation to Gandhi taking responsibility for the poor show. “The results are depressing for the Uttar Pradesh Congress. I find myself guilty of not discharging my responsibility in a proper manner. I will meet the leadership and apprise it of my views,” Babbar tweeted in Hindi.
Yogendra Mishra, president of district Congress Committee- Amethi, the constituency that handed out a defeat to the Gandhi, also resigned taking responsibility for the defeat.
Rahul Gandhi lost Amethi to BJP’s Smriti Irani in the biggest upset of Lok Sabha election 2019. With this Amethi snapped its 39-year-old ties with the Gandhis that started in 1980 with Rahul Gandhi’s uncle Sanjay Gandhi contesting and winning this seat.
The Congress managed to hold on to just one seat in the state, that of Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli.
Another leader who quit on Friday was Niranjan Patnaik, president, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee. “I too had contested the election, party had given me a responsibility, I take the moral responsibility for this debacle and relinquish this job. I’ve communicated it to my AICC President,” he said after the Congress managed leads in just one of the state’s 21 Lok Sabha seats and its tally came down to 9 from 16 of the outgoing assembly.
Karnataka Congress campaign committee president HK Patil also put in his papers writing to party president Rahul Gandhi, ‘It is time for all of us to introspect. I feel it my moral duty to own up the responsibility, hence, I submit my resignation from the post.’
In Karnataka, the state Congress rules in coalition with the JD(S), the grand old party just manage 1 seat as compared to 9 of 2014 with stalwarts like Mallikarjun Kharge and Veerappa Moily falling by the wayside. This was Kharge’s first electoral defeat in his political career spanning several decades. Moily, who was the Karnataka Chief Minister from 1992 -1994, was trounced by the BJP’s Bache Gowda.
First Published:
May 27, 2019 11:32 IST
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