The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Saturday unanimously rejected Rahul Gandhi’s offer to resign as party president after the Lok Sabha poll debacle and authorised him to overhaul and restructure the party at all levels. The meeting deliberated on the reasons behind the Congress’s defeat in the elections for four long hours with various leaders urging Mr. Gandhi to continue to provide leadership to the party.
Earlier in the meeting held a couple of days after the Congress party suffered humiliating defeat in parliamentary elections the party's President Rahul Gandhi offered to step down taking responsibility for the debacle but his offer was unanimously rejected by the party’s top decision-making forum. At the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting convened here to discuss the party's performance in the poll Rahul offered to quit as party head in the wake of the defeat but the CWC unanimously adopted a resolution rejecting his offer, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.
"Rahulji said that I as the chief of the party should take responsibility and resign. At this, all CWC members cutting across age rejected his offer to quit," according to Azad whose party suffered its second consecutive parliamentary election defeat in five years. "The CWC members told Rahulji that everyone accepts your leadership now and will continue to accept in future also," Azad said adding the party's highest decision-making forum authorized Rahul Gandhi to go for a total restructuring and overhaul of the party organization.
Azad said the CWC made it clear that the party needed Rahul's continued leadership. Congress chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said that after Rahul offered to quit as party President, the CWC told him that the party wanted his leadership to continue "in this challenging time" and in future also. Azad said he had never seen before seen this kind of unanimity in the CWC in favour of Rahul's leadership.
RahuI’s offer to resign and the CWC’s rejection of it was seen by political observers as a ritualistic exercise. I n 2014, the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi and the then Vice President Rahul Gandhi, both of whom had led the party’s campaign in parliamentary poll, had offered to quit after the party plunged to a historic low of 44 seats. But the Congress rejected the offer and assumed "collective responsibility".
Surjewala said the CWC deliberated on the election results and agreed on the need for an introspection. Azad the Congress' loss in the election was not a defeat of its ideology but a defeat of the numbers. "After all, victory and loss is part of democracy," he added. He said the Congress will continue to play the role of a constructive opposition both inside and outside parliament.
Congress bagged 52 seats in the recent poll, just eight more than 44 the party got in the previous national election five years ago when it had put up its worst electoral performance. The party failed to get any seat in 18 states and federally-administered territories. Murmurs have already surfaced within the party over taking responsibility for its poor performance, with some of its leaders already sending in their resignations like Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar and Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik.
The CWC meeting, chaired by Rahul Gandhi, was attended by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and chief ministers of four party-ruled states -- Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh -- and of the federally-administered territory Puducherry
In the recent election, Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka campaigned extensively across the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP and its allies won a spectacular mandate of over 350 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha to continue for a second term. The mandate was bigger than the 2014 outcome.