NEW DELHI – Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday resigned as leader of India’s main opposition Congress party.
In his resignation letter, which he tweeted on Wednesday, he took responsibility for the party’s defeat in the recent general election.
https://twitter.com/RahulGandhi/status/1146359704815194112
“Accountability is critical for the future growth of our party. It is for this reason that I have resigned as Congress president,” the 49-year-old wrote on Twitter.
In the letter he added that while he had no “hatred or anger” towards India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), “every living cell in my body instinctively resists their idea of India” which he said was based on differences and hatred.
He also called the impartiality of the election into question, saying that “we didn’t fight a political party… we fought the entire machinery of the Indian state”.
Gandhi, who was seeking to become the fourth member of his family dynasty to become prime minister, had been Congress president since December 2017.
Gandhi’s father, grandmother and great grandfather were all former prime ministers.
His party could win only 52 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, pulverized by the PM Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party’s massive victory in May this year.
Gandhi also lost his own seat in his family constituency of Amethi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, though he is still a MP because he won a second seat in the southern state of Kerala.
Since it came to power, the BJP has been accused of targeting minorities and weakening state institutions under Modi’s powerful leadership. It has consistently dismissed such allegations.
