Rahul Gandhi offers to resign as Congress president

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday offered to step down from his post taking moral responsibility of the humiliating defeat the party faced in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

However, the resignation was turned down by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) which met at the party headquarters in New Delhi to discuss the reasons behind the debacle for the consecutive time in the general elections.

Several senior leaders, including UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, 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, were present at the meeting.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress's general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, was also present in the huddle. Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah joined in as well.The CWC, sources said, took 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 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.

The party put up a poor show in states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh where it had won the Assembly elections just five months ago.

Speculations were rife that the Congress president would resign in the aftermath of the humiliating defeat as the party contested the elections under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

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.