In a much-expected turn of events Congress President Rahul Gandhi, in the CWC meeting, conducted yesterday to introspect the Lok Sabha debacle faced by his party, passed the buck on to few Congress veterans for putting their personal interests ahead of the party.
As reported by Times of India, Rahul lambasted at the senior leaders for not utilising his narratives, like the Rafale deal and the associated slogan “chowkidar chor hai”, to the optimal, against BJP and Narendra Modi, which caused the Congress the loss. He apparently even asked for a show of hands of the members present to know who all followed his suit.
If one is to believe the sources, Rahul in the CWC meeting, accused the party leaders of not taking forward the issues that he had raised in the campaign to build a strong narrative against BJP and asked for a show of hand by CWC members who had followed his suit.
Flustered by the loss, Rahul lashed out at some senior leaders like Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath and P Chidambaram for pushing for tickets for their sons. His intervention came after Jyotiraditya Scindia argued that Congress needed to groom strong local leaders. Scindia, who was also the General Secretary for UP-West, lost his Guna seat in Madhya Pradesh.
Rahul pointed out that Congress had done badly in states where it was in power. He said chief ministers, Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan and Kamal Nath of Madhya Pradesh insisted on tickets for their sons even when he was not in favour of accepting their requests. He also mentioned former Union minister P Chidambaram’s name in this context.
Meanwhile, coming as a major embarrassment for the party, Congress despite winning the last Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh’ Assembly elections, failed miserably in the Lok Sabha elections. While in Rajasthan, it failed to secure even a single seat out of the 25 seats in Madhya Pradesh it managed one out of the 29 seats contested. Not only this but Congress had lost deposits in dozens of seats across the country and had scored big zeros in 17 states in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Saying that he wanted accountability in the organisation, Rahul reportedly accepted responsibility for the defeat in the elections and announced that he was quitting as the party chief.
Amusingly, though Congress President Rahul Gandhi had indeed offered to resign, the CWC, that is chaired by himself, had unanimously rejected the resignation and asked him to reconstruct the party.
