Congress Party on Tuesday sacked the party’s chiefs in the five states where it suffered massive defeats last week, taking what it called the first step towards “reorganisation”. Navjot Singh Sidhu, who took over as Punjab Congress chief eight months ago, is among the leaders asked to resign.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted that the resignations were sought to “facilitate the reorganisation” of the state Congress units.
The Congress lost Punjab to Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and failed to put up a credible fight in the four states where it had hoped for a comeback – or even manage a close contest with the BJP.
The Punjab loss was the worst; the Congress collapsed after months of infighting as Mr Sidhu clashed with veteran Amarinder Singh as well as his eleventh-hour replacement Charanjit Singh Channi.
Sonia Gandhi’s move is a follow-up to the Congress leadership meeting on Sunday to discuss the latest poll drubbings.
In her speech to senior leaders at the Congress Working Committee (CWC)’s poll post-mortem, Sonia Gandhi offered to resign along with her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.