Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Jai Prakash Agarwal has resigned from his post owning moral responsibility of Congress’ humiliating defeat in the recently concluded Assembly elections.
Agarwal had sent his resignation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on December 9. The Congress managed to won only eight seats in the Assembly polls and the defeat has put question mark on the leadership of Agarwal who was at the helm since 2007.
Aggarwal had come under a sharp attack from Sheila Dikshit as she blamed Agarwal for not backing her “enthusiastically” in the Assembly elections, leading to the party’s drubbing at the hands of new entrant Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and traditional rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Even three-time Chief Minister Dikshit was defeated by AAP founder Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency by a huge margin of over 25,000 votes.
Sources said that Dikshit in her report to the Congress president has provided details about the non-cooperative attitude of Agarwal during the run-up to the elections. Delhi Congress spokesperson Jitender Kochhar confirmed that Agarwal has resigned.
Agarwal is not known to share a good equation with Dikshit as both of them differed on many crucial issues in the run-up to the polls. He was unhappy with Dikshit’s push for giving tickets to all the 43 sitting MlAs. Several Congress leaders who have lost the recently concluded Assembly elections have alleged that Pradesh Congress failed to counter BJP propaganda and there was no plan to counter Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) during election.
In a meeting with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Congress MlAs had reportedly told him that Agarwal had not put in enough efforts in the elections. Congress MlAs also alleged that the organisation was nowhere during the election campaigning.