RaGa offers resignation after poll debacle, CWC rejects it

New Delhi:A couple of days after the humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision making body of the party rejected the resignation offered by Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday. 

Sources said that the meeting of the CWC, held at Congress headquarters and attended by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders of the party, to analyse reasons for the party's poor performance.  

Earlier, Mr Rahul Gandhi offered his resignation to the CWC as party president to own responsibility for the poor show by the Congress in these elections.

In the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party put up a poor show, winning just 52 seats in the 542 member House, while the BJP secured a landslide win by securing with 303 seats.

Mr Gandhi also lost from the traditional Gandhi family stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as Smriti Irani of the BJP wrested the seat that he has represented since 2004.The formal entry of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as General Secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh (UP) East also failed to boost the chances of the party in Uttar Pradesh.

The elections saw the party suffer a near-wipe out in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan that it had won just five months ago.While Congress scored nil in Rajasthan, it retained Chhindwara in MP and two seats in Chhattisgarh.

In  as many as 18 States, the party failed to open its account.Sources said that at the meeting, many of the state in-charges are also likely to offer their resignations over the party's poor show in the respective states.This is the second time in a row that the Congress  has suffered a  huge defeat at the hands of the BJP.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Mr Gandhi had said that he conceded responsibility for the party's debacle.

He had said that a meeting of the CWC would assess reasons for the defeat of the Congress.

Asked whether he would resign as the party chief on Thursday, Mr Gandhi said, ''That you can leave between me and the Working Committee.''(UNI)