Congress Working Committee meets to review crushing Lok Sabha defeat

The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s top decision-making body, was set to meet on Saturday to review the Lok Sabha election results. The Congress won only 52 seats, a small improvement on its worst-ever showing of 44 seats in 2014.

Rahul Gandhi’s position

The party strongly denied speculation that its president Rahul Gandhi had offered to step down, calling such reports “mischievous and incorrect”. One Congress leader said that even if Gandhi did offer to quit, as some expected, the offer would probably be turned down, since he had consulted widely when the party settled its strategy and chose its candidates.

Gandhi had already taken responsibility for the result but had not said what he would do next. Asked at a press conference on Thursday, after the results, whether he would resign, he said: “the decision will be between me and the working committee.” He had also signalled that he did not want the defeat to damage the morale of party workers.

Resignations and the Opposition post

Three senior leaders had already quit after the defeat: Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar, HK Patil, who had been in charge of the party’s Karnataka campaign, and Odisha Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik.

The party could again fall short of the strength needed for the Leader of Opposition’s post in the Lok Sabha, which it was also denied in 2014. A party needs 55 of the 543 seats to claim the post. At the CWC meeting, the party was expected to examine why it had lost so badly and decide how to move forward.

What happened next

Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president in July 2019, and Sonia Gandhi became interim president in August 2019.

See also: political leaders

Originally published on 25 May 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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