While the Congress is gasping for its survival after its second Lok Sabha debacle, its senior leader has now said that the "biggest problem" is that Rahul Gandhi "walked away". This comes just weeks ahead of the Assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra on October 21.
In a an interview to Associated Press, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid said that the departure of Rahul Gandhi has left a vacuum in the party. Weeks ahead of the Assembly polls in Haryana and Maharashtra on October 21, Khurshid said Congress may not be able to win the elections or ensure its own future.
“We haven’t really got together to analyse why we got defeated [in the Lok Sabha elections],” Khurshid said in an interview. “Our biggest problem is our leader has walked away. It has kind of left a vacuum. Sonia Gandhi stepped in, but there is more than an indication that she is treating herself as a stop-gap arrangement. I wish it wasn’t so.”
Khurshid's remarks came after a controversy over his comments broke out wherein he reportedly termed Rahul Gandhi's resignation from the post of party president "walking away" following defeat.
Rahul Gandhi resigned as the Congress president on July 3 after the party’s major setback in the Lok Sabha elections, in which it secured only 52 out of 542 Parliamentary seats. His mother Sonia Gandhi took over the Congress’ reins from him and became interim Congress president on August 10.
