After the poll debacle, the top leaders of the Congress will meet on Saturday to discuss losses and what went wrong for the party in the Lok Sabha polls. Party chief Rahul Gandhi who took '100 per cent responsibility' for the defeat is expected to offer his resignation.
Some of the state chiefs like Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar and Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik have already submitted their resignations, taking moral responsibility for the electoral debacle which saw the Congress bag only 52 seats. It was a clean sweep for the Narendra Modi-led BJP which won 303 seats, bettering its 2014 performance.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Congress won only one of the 80 Lok Sabha seats—Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli. In a humiliating defeat, Rahul Gandhi lost to senior BJP leader Smriti Irani in Amethi.
“The results are depressing for the Uttar Pradesh Congress. I find myself guilty of not discharging my responsibility in a proper manner," Raj Babbar had tweeted.
In 2014, then Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi had both offered to quit after the party plunged to a historic low of 44 seats. The party, however, had turned down the resignations. With a second consecutive drubbing in the elections, the leadership plans of the grand old party is been keenly watched.
