India Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi resigns

NEW DELHI - Taking responsibility for the Congress party's crushing defeat in recent elections, party president Rahul Gandhi of a fabled political family resigned on Wednesday.

Gandhi said he was stepping down because accountability is "critical for the future growth of our party". He said rebuilding the party requires hard decisions and "numerous people will have to be made accountable for the failure".

"It would be unjust to hold others accountable but ignore my own responsibility as president of the party," he said in a resignation letter.

It was unclear whether the secular left-of-center party would accept Gandhi's resignation.

Gandhi's family, starting with his great-grandfather, independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, has produced three prime ministers. Two of them - Rahul's grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi - were assassinated in office.

Gandhi lost his own seat, long a Congress party bastion, in the April-May elections, marking the end of an era for modern India's most powerful political family. However, he won a seat from another constituency.

Gandhi had been talking of quitting since the results of the elections were announced in May, but party officials urged him to stay on.

In the elections, the Congress party won only 52 of the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament in the election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party took 303 seats, increasing its majority as it won a second consecutive five-year term.

Arti Jerath, a political commentator, said nothing would change if the Gandhi family remains "the power center of the Congress party". She said Congress needs an election within the party, "so that new leaders can come up".

"That is the only way to get fresh blood and ideas. The Gandhi family has to let go. It can't continue the system of patronage," Jerath said.

Agencies

(China Daily 07/05/2019 page11)