[DAWN] A second straight landslide election defeat for opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised serious questions on Friday about his leadership and cast a damaging shadow over one of the world's most prominent political dynasties.
Gandhi, who even lost the family constituency seat to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of arch-rival Narendra Modi, will have to face the music at a meeting of party leaders in coming days.
The election results made grim reading for Congress barons who have relied for generations on the talismanic Nehru-Gandhi name ‐ which rivals the Kennedy clan in the United States and the Bhuttos in Pakistain ‐ to provide electoral success.
The tarnished party was predicted to get about 50 seats, barely improving the historic low 44 it won in Modi's last landslide in 2014. Congress failed to get a single seat in 13 of the country's 29 states.
When asked about responsibility for the loss, Rahul Gandhi told a presser late Thursday: "This is between my party and me. Between me and the Congress Working Committee."
Party spokesmen have insisted the 48-year-old son, grandson and great-grandson of Indian prime ministers would not resign and that strategy was to blame for the defeat.
"We have to go back to the drawing board," Congress front man Salman Soz told AFP. |