ADVERTISEMENT

India’s Congress Party Seeks to Reorganize After Election Rout

The Congress Working Committee rejected Rahul Gandhi’s resignation offer “unanimously”.

India’s Congress Party Seeks to Reorganize After Election Rout
Members of the media and party workers wait on a lawn outside the Indian National Congress Party headquarters in New Delhi, India. (Photographer: T. Narayan/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The Indian National Congress authorized its President Rahul Gandhi to reorganize the party, while rejecting his offer of resignation following its rout in the recent elections.

The Congress Working Committee, the top decision-making body of the party, rejected Gandhi’s resignation offer “unanimously” and requested him to undertake “a complete overhaul and detailed restructuring at every level of the party,” its spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters in New Delhi. “A plan to this effect shall come into force at the earliest.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi clinched a second five-year term, with his Bharatiya Janata Party winning 303 of the 543 parliamentary seats to secure a single-party majority. The Congress won 52 seats, which was only a few more seats than it took in 2014.

To contact the reporter on this story: Debjit Chakraborty in New Delhi at dchakrabor10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Serene Cheong at scheong20@bloomberg.net, Karthikeyan Sundaram

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.