Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday asked the party chiefs of all five states that recently went to polls to resign. The Congress was defeated in all the states.
“Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi has asked the PCC [Pradesh Congress Committee] Presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur to put in their resignations in order to facilitate reorganisation of PCC’s,” Surjewala said on Twitter.
Sonia Gandhi has asked Navjot Singh Sidhu to resign from Punjab, Ajay Kumar Lallu from Uttar Pradesh, Ganesh Godiyal from Uttarakhand, Girish Chodankar from Goa and Nameirakpam Loken Singh from Manipur.
Chodankar had resigned earlier in the day. Godiyal resigned in the evening, The Hindu reported.
Surjewala’s announcement came two days after the Congress held a meeting of its working committee to discuss its defeat in the five states. At the time, media reports had speculated that Sonia Gandhi, along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, may offer their resignations.
However, party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said after the meeting that the Congress Working Committee rejected the offer of the Gandhis to resign.
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge also backed Sonia Gandhi, saying that she alone was not responsible for Congress’ defeat. He said that each state party leader and MPs were responsible for the debacle too.
The Congress had managed to win only 55 of the 690 seats spread across the five states in the results declared on Thursday. It lost Punjab to the Aam Aadmi Party and failed to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
In Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP won with a comfortable majority, Congress won just two seats in the 403-member state Assembly.
In all states except Uttarakhand, the Congress’ vote share and the number of seats plummeted.
Currently, the party is in power in just two states – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In Maharashtra, the Congress is in a coalition government with the Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party.
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