The Congress cannot be united without the Gandhi family, the party's top firefighter DK Shivakumar said on Thursday, defending the leadership after a humiliating 0/5 loss in state elections that have renewed criticism of the leadership.
"Without the Gandhi family, the Congress party cannot stay united. They are key for the unity of the Congress party... It is impossible for the Congress to survive without the Gandhi family," the party's Karnataka unit chief said.
When asked how he would reconcile the idea of the Gandhis as a unifying factor given the string of exits over the past few years, Mr Shivakumar said, "Those who are hungry for power can please leave. People who see personal gains are leaving Congress. The rest of us are not interested in power... We are loyal to the Congress party and the Congress ideology and will always stand with the Gandhi family."
The Congress faced a wipe-out in state election results declared on Thursday, losing Punjab, one of the last major states under its control, to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and failing to put up a strong fight in three other states where it had hoped for a comeback - Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
In Uttar Pradesh, where the campaign was led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, party chief Sonia Gandhi's daughter and sister to senior leader Rahul Gandhi, the Congress got just 2 seats out of 403, a loss of 5 over the last polls. The party got just 2.4 per cent of the vote.
The defeat revived discordant notes within the party and outside. Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said the party could not avoid change while his colleague Jaiveer Shergill appealed for reform and warned against "sugar-coating" the loss.
The results are also likely to bolster the case of the group of dissidents within the party dubbed the "G-23" which first wrote an unprecedented letter two years ago to Sonia Gandhi asking for sweeping changes and a "visible and effective leadership".
Backing the leadership, DK Shivakumar said, "Priyanka Gandhi took up a very tough fight and worked hard. But we could not get the results... The thing is that the Congress has not been able to convince the voters of this country. The people of this country are not understanding. We got an opportunity to explain it to them, but have failed to do so."
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