Rahul Gandhi's offer to quit likely at CWC meet on Saturday

Sources said that the meeting of the CWC, to be held on Saturday morning and to be attended by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior leaders of the party, will assess reasons for the poor show by the Congress .

They said that Rahul Gandhi is likely to offer 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 nearly 300 seats.

Rahul 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-wipeout 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 12 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, Rahul Gandhi had said that he conceded responsibility for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha polls.

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, Gandhi said, “That you can leave between me and the Working Committee.”