On Monday, the eve of the results of the recently-concluded Delhi Assembly elections, Ajay Maken took “complete responsibility” for the Congress’ overall poll performance.
Sources said the face of the party campaign even offered to resign as party general-secretary in case he fails to register an individual victory from North-Delhi’s Sadar Bazaar.
Mr. Maken, who is also the head of the party’s communication department, already made his intention to resign clear at the conclusion of a stock-taking exercise initiated by him on Saturday evening after polling officially concluded. “He spoke over the phone with several candidates who had contested, in addition to meeting some of them at his North Avenue office on Saturday evening,” a source said.
It was during his discussion with the latter that Mr. Maken is understood to have announced his decision to step down. Speaking to The Hindu , he said: “As the face of the party’s campaign, it is I who will be responsible for its performance and no one else.”
Asked to comment on various exit polls projections, which stated that the party was expected to bag a maximum of three seats, Mr. Maken said: “It will be my loss, not the party’s loss. I will be completely accountable for it.”
Recognised as the party’s lone warrior who went all-out in a bid to make its delayed campaign as successful as possible, he was also the architect of two rallies and four road shows that brought the party’s central leadership — most notably president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi — in contact with voters.
Poll surveys suggest that Mr. Maken is expected to be behind both his rivals from the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party in his Sadar Bazaar constituency.
Reduced to a paltry seat share of eight in the 70-member Assembly after the previous polls, the Congress had extended support to the AAP, with its own share of 28 seats, to form the government here.
