Congress dissolves Uttar Pradesh state unit following LS polls drubbing

New Delhi: In the first major action since its massive drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress on Tuesday dissolved its state unit in politically significant Uttar Pradesh, that may signal a drastic overhaul ahead.

All state, district and block committees of the party in Uttar Pradesh stand dissolved, AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi announced. He however said that Pradesh Congress Committee chief Nirmal Khatri will continue in the post. The general practice in the Congress is for the incumbent PCC chief to continue till a successor is chosen.

The Congress was decimated in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha polls, where it got just two of the state’s 80 seats going to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. In 2009, it won 22 Lok Sabha seats.

However, it had been downhill since then, with the party getting a major drubbing in the 2012 Assembly election. The shakeup in the Uttar Pradesh unit may be a prelude to similar exercises in a number of states, where the executive wing of the party has not been reconstituted for a long time.

The units in Delhi and Haryana, have also been disbanded. The Congress recorded its worst-ever electoral performance in this election winning only 44 Lok Sabha seats.