India’s opposition Congress party which slumped to a second landslide defeat in elections is due to hold a high-level meeting in which its leader Rahul Gandhi could offer his resignation, news reports said on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin a series of meetings later on Friday to finalise his new cabinet and the date of inauguration after scoring a massive re-election victory.
Election Commission data showed that Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata (BJP) won 302 of the 545 parliamentary seats, surpassing the 282 seats it secured in the previous elections.
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The Congress finished second with 52 seats, a marginal improvement over it’s lowest-ever tally of 44 seats in 2014.
The Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, is to meet early on Saturday to analyse the reasons behind the crushing defeat, CWC member Avinash Pande told reporters.
Leading national media cited party sources saying that the future of Congress chief Gandhi, 48-year-old heir of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, would be the main agenda of the meeting.
The reports said he would offer his resignation, but that it is likely to be turned down by senior party officials taking collective responsibility for the defeat.
In the coming days, BJP’s newly-elected parliamentarians will meet in New Delhi and the party will decide on the date of the new government’s inauguration, likely in the coming week.
The marathon polls were viewed as a referendum on Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics.
He scored a major win despite rising unemployment, fears of an economic slowdown and religious polarisation.
India’s general elections, the world’s largest democratic exercise, saw 605 million people, 67 per cent of registered voters, casting ballots in the elections between April 11 and May 19. (NAN)
