Congress meet underway to discuss LS poll debacle, Rahul may offer resignation

A meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) is underway at the party headquarters in New Delhi to discuss the humiliating defeat they faced in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Several senior leaders including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, party president Rahul Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh, Motilal Vora, former union ministers RPN Singh, PL Punia and P Chidambaram, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad, are present at the meeting.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah are also attending the meeting.

Though there was no official word on the agenda for the meeting, sources said the committee is likely to discuss future strategies.

The CWC is also expected to take stock of the party's loss in Uttar Pradesh, the state which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.

Congress, despite extensive campaigning by Rahul Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, was decimated to a single seat - Raebareli, represented by Sonia Gandhi - in Uttar Pradesh. Rahul Gandhi, who was the MP from Amethi since 2004, lost to Union Minister Smriti Irani.

Sources also indicated that the issue which may also come up for deliberation is the party's drubbing in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where it had won the Assembly elections just five months ago.

All members of the committee have been instructed to talk and put their proposal openly in the meeting today, the sources added.

Speculations are rife that Rahul Gandhi may offer to resign as party president, accepting moral responsibility for the debacle.

In the 2014 general election, the Congress had won 44 seats, the lowest score in its history. It has improved its tally marginally by 8 to reach 52 seats in the 2019 polls.

Meanwhile, the chiefs of party units in states like Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha have offered to resign from their post accepting responsibility for Congress' poor performance.