AICC General Secretary and in-charge of the state B K Hariprasad on Sunday said there were organisational weaknesses in the party in the western state that need to be plugged.
NEW DELHI: Owning responsibility for the Congress' defeat in the Gujarat Assembly elections, AICC General Secretary and in-charge of the state B K Hariprasad on Sunday said there were organisational weaknesses in the party in the western state that need to be plugged.
"I own responsibility for the defeat of the party in Gujarat," Hariprasad told.
To a question on whether he will resign in the wake of the party failing to unseat Narendra Modi in the state, he said, "If need be I will do it."
"Something somewhere has gone drastically wrong. We did not do as well as in Saurashtra as was expected," he said, noting that the Patel-dominated region turned out to be a waterloo for the Congress.
He said the Congress' organisational weakness in Gujarat was a major drawback for the party in the elections.
"We had been preparing for the Gujarat elections for the last eight or nine months, but there were certain organisational weaknesses due to which we failed to win the elections," Hariprasad said.
To a question on why the large turnouts in the rallies by leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were not translated into votes, Hariprasad said, "It was our responsibility to translate the large public response in the rallies into votes, but we failed."
"The Congress has not created a second line of leadership in Gujarat, which could be a reason for the organisational weaknesses," he said.
Hariprasad rejected the idea that Gandhi's "merchants of death" speech helped Modi and described the election results as, "This is not a victory of the BJP per se but a victory of Modi."
On the issue of projecting someone as a chief ministerial candidate, he said normally the Congress does not project anyone as a chief minister or prime minister in an election.
Asked if Gujarat Congress President Bharatsinh Solanki would be asked to resign following the results he said, "I can't say. This has to be his decision."
He said the Gujarat polls will have no bearing on the General elections.
"The Gujarat elections would have no bearing on the Congress' showing in the General elections," he said.
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