Following the humiliating debacle of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections 2019, top leaders from the party’s state wings offered their resignation to party chief Rahul Gandhi owing moral responsibility for the loss.
Odisha Congress committee president Niranjan Patnaik, who contested from Bhandaripokhari and Ghasipura assembly constituencies, sent his resignation to Gandhi on Friday.
“I too had contested the election. Party had given me a responsibility. I take the moral responsibility for this debacle and relinquish this job. I’ve communicated it to my AICC President,” the 72-year-old said.
Even his son, Nabajyoti Das, lost from Balasore Lok Sabha seat as the BJP and the BJD captured the assembly and parliamentary constituencies in the state.
The ruling BJD under Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik won as many as 112 of the 146 seats in the Assembly. The BJP won 23 Assembly seats, up from the 10 it had won in 2014 snatching the mantle of Leader of Opposition from the Congress.
On the other hand, Karnataka Congress Campaign Committee president HK Patil, too, sent his resignation to the 48-year-old Gandhi.
“It is time for all of us to introspect. I feel it my moral duty to own up the responsibility. Hence, I submit my resignation from the post,” he wrote in his letter to Gandhi.
The BJP registered massive victory in Karnataka winning 25 of the 28 seats. The Congress-JD(S) coalition won only 1, after Prajwal Revanna tendered his resignation soon after winning from Hassan.
JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda lost from Tumkur. Revanna, his grandson, resigned to “reinstate confidence of the JD(S) cadre”.
“We have to fill the gap left by the defeat of HD Devegowda. Therefore, I’ve decided to tender my resignation. I want him to be victorious once again from Hassan,” he said at a press conference.
And in Uttar Pradesh, where the Modi wave uprooted Rahul Gandhi from his bastion of Amethi, state Congress chief Raj Babbar reportedly sent his resignation to the party president.
The BJP-led NDA won 64 of the 80 LS seats in the state, fending off an alliance of SP-BSP-RLD and reducing Congress to just one seat.
Babbar took “moral responsibility” of the Congress defeat in Uttar Pradesh
The biggest embarrassment for the Congress was Gandhi’s loss at the hands of BJP’s Smriti Irani in Amethi.
Following the loss, Yogendra Mishra, president of District Congress Committee of Amethi, resigned from his post taking responsibility.