Rout collective responsibility, not Rahul ’s alone: Ashok Chavan

Mumbai: The Congress’ massive defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was a “collective responsibility” and not that of party chief Rahul Gandhi alone, Maharashtra state unit chief Ashok Chavan said Saturday. He said that there should be changes in the state unit and current office bearers should resign in order to allow Mr Gandhi to make changes in the organisation. He claimed that he has proposed to resign himself. Meanwhile, former Mumbai unit president, Sanjay Nirupam said that other parties also faced humiliating defeat but nobody asked their leaders’ resignations. He said, therefore there was no reason for Mr Gandhi to resign.  

Taking onus of the defeat in the election in the state, Mr Chavan said that the party did not get the expected result in the election and Mr Gandhi is ready to tender his resignation as the party president. But Mr Gandhi is not responsible for this defeat. Therefore, there is no need for him to resign him from the party president post.

Speaking with the reporters at Tilak Bhavan, Mr Chavan said, “All the state party presidents including me are ready to tender our resignations from the post of state president owing to the poor performance of Congress in the country. The Congress president should be given an opportunity to take a decision which he thinks is appropriate. If he thinks that a change is needed in the organisation, he should make it so that the party will fare better in the upcoming election.”

The state Congress president, who did not manage to win Nanded, said that he has offered his resignation from the post and it is up to the party to take a call on it as it is a matter of the party’s future prospect.

“It would not be appropriate to say that Rahul Gandhi is only responsible for the debacle of the party. It is the collective responsibility of the party,” he added.  

On social networking site Twitter, Mr Nirupam said, “Under the leadership of Congress President @RahulGandhi we fought this election bravely. He worked very hard undoubtedly. Our bad luck, we lost. Why should he resign? No. He should continue to lead the party. We will fight back under his leadership and come back soon.”

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