"Shoot Me," Said Haryana Congress Chief, Blamed In Meet On Election Rout

Confronted with the Congress's atrocious performance in Haryana in the national election, party chief Ashok Tanwar stormed out of a meeting on Tuesday after shouting: "If you want to get rid of me, just shoot me."

The Congress's Haryana in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad had called the review meeting to analyse the party's debacle.

The Congress scored a duck in the state which has 10 Lok Sabha seats.

At the post-mortem, a faction led by former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Hooda targeted the state chief and asked him to explain the party's poor performance.

Ashok Tanwar has been under attack over the election results but he was not among the Congress state unit chiefs who quit their post taking responsibility. The Hooda faction says he should.

The proceedings apparently became tense when Mr Azad declared that "certain organizational changes" would take place soon, "from top to bottom".

As the sparring went on in the meeting, Mr Tanwar walked out after saying: "Mereko agar khatam karna hai, toh goli maar do."

According to a party leader who attended the meeting, "Mr Tanwar got upset at the Hooda faction that kept demanding his resignation."

Mr Tanwar confirmed the sequence of events but denied any suggestion from the leadership that he could be replaced. "I don't see any leadership change in the coming days and no discussion was held over this issue in the meeting," he said.

"They are gunning for my resignation... why should I resign," Mr Tanwar questioned, speaking to NDTV.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, who also walked out of the meeting, could not be reached for comments.