After the Congress was sent packing for a duck as it registered its lowest vote percentage at less than five per cent in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly election, party leader PC Chacko on Wednesday tendered his resignation from the post of Delhi Congress in-charge.

Further, making a controversial statement, Chacko had earlier in the day said that the downfall of the Congress party started in 2013 when Sheila Dikshit was the chief minister.

“The emergence of a new party, AAP, took away the entire Congress vote bank. We could never get it back. It still remains with AAP,” he further told news agency ANI.

He, later, clarified that he was not pinning the reason for the party’s dismal performance since 2013 on the late leader, who has been the chief minister of Delhi thrice.

“I did not say that we lost in Sheila Ji’s time; it is being wrongly interpreted. We lost in 2013, even in 2014, 2015 and 2017. I know who are the people behind all this issue. There is a deliberate campaign against me. I have seen this earlier also,” Chacko claimed.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders from the former chief minister’s camp have attacked Chacko over leaking a letter written by her son Sandeep Dikshit, a two-time MP, in which he had alleged that “Chacko was responsible for the death of the former Chief Minister, who was under immense pressure from the Delhi in-charge”.

This is not the first time that PC Chacko has offered his resignation from the Delhi in-charge post. Last year also he had put in his papers, but was asked to stay on till the elections.

Meanwhile, Chacko’s resignation is the second in the party following its complete rout in the Assembly polls.

On Tuesday evening, party State chief Subhash Chopra quit after owning the defeat. He said that he could not do much for the party, and hence was leaving the post.

After Tuesday’s poor performance, the rift within the party is now out in the open with the first salvo coming from Sharmistha Mukherji on Twitter, who said “we should shut shop” while attacking former union minister P. Chidambaram after he expressed happiness about the BJP’s dismal show in the Delhi Assembly elections.

The Congress, which ruled the state for 15 years, could not perform well in the elections, and the local leaders were quick to put the blame on the central leaders.

Meanwhile, former Union minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said the party “does not have a leader to project”.

We don’t have a leader to project. This is the issue within the party. We will look into it and resolve it at the earliest,” Sibal told news agency ANI.

The Congress has been a divided house in Delhi ever since 2010 when a section of the party tried to dislodge Sheila Dikshit. The bitterness between the two factions still persists as leaders from her camp blame the other for the rout of the party in these elections.

After losing Delhi Assembly polls and forfeiting its deposit on most seats, the Congress on Tuesday held the “communal” campaign of BJP responsible for the results.