Congress leaders Ajay Maken and Arvinder Singh Lovely have tendered their resignation to party president Sonia Gandhi, taking moral responsibility for the party not winning even a single seat in the Delhi Assembly elections.
However, it was not clear whether the resignations have been accepted.
All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Delhi, P C Chacko, has also offered to resign from his post. Maken, the Congress campaign committee chief, finished third in the Sadar Bazar constituency with only 16,331 votes, while the Congress' Surender Sharma lost in the Gandhi Nagar constituency, which had been Lovely’s stronghold since he first won elections in 1998.
Maken lost by a margin of 51,176 votes to Som Dutt Sharma of the Aam Aadmi Party, who polled 67,507 votes.
Sadar Bazar, home to the capital's largest wholesale market, was a Congress stronghold from 1998 until Sharma won the seat in the December 2013 elections.
“I believe I should take responsibility and resign. I was the face of the Congress campaign, and have not been able to win the seat I contested in,” Maken told reporters, adding that the result has nothing to do with the party leadership. He defended Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, saying that the election was fought on local issues. However, a group of party workers came out in support of Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka, raising slogans of “Priyanka lao, Congress bachao”.
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