As resignations of national and State functionaries of the Congress continue to pour in, more leaders have come out with the demand that Rahul Gandhi stay as party president.
Among the latest to join the list of leaders who resigned are Chhattisgarh general secretary in-charge P.L. Punia and Kisan Congress President Nana Patole. According to sources, nearly 200 office-bearers have quit so far.
As many as 36 office-bearers of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee resigned on Saturday.
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Moral responsibility
Congress leader in Legislative Council Deepak Singh, the State unit’s senior vice-president Ranjit Singh Judev, general secretary Aradhna Mishra Mona, vice-president R.P. Tripathi and many others have resigned taking moral responsibility for the party’s defeat, an official release of the party said.
The mass resignations come more than a month after Mr. Gandhi announced his decision to quit on May 25 at the Congress Working Committee meeting in New Delhi. Many of those who resigned on Friday are demanding that the entire Congress Working Committee be disbanded and office-bearers of the 17 States where Congress did not win a single seat be dismissed. Those States include Rajasthan, which the party had won in the recent Assembly election. “Everybody in the Congress has only one request and one desire that Rahul Gandhi should continue as our party president. The Congress Working Committee too passed a resolution saying so. Many other State units too have passed a similar resolution,” Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera told presspersons on Saturday.
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He rejected the speculation that the mass resignations, initiated by erstwhile Youth Congress functionaries, was a way to push out the old guard in the party. “In our huge family of the Congress, different people have different ways to express their request,” Mr. Khera said.
Party general secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh Dipak Babaria, Goa unit chief Girish Chodankar, Delhi unit’s working president Rajesh Lilothia and Telangana unit’s working president Ponnam Prabhakar were among the 140 odd functionaries who quit on Friday.
No study
“The stalemate has continued far too long. The first step we should have taken post the debacle was to do a forensic study of the reasons why we lost the election so badly. For every constituency there is a different reason for our performance. And the more we postpone this exercise the more we will lose out,” a top Congress leader said.
(With PTI inputs)