Days after the party’s defeat in the 2022 assembly elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday asked the chiefs of the five state units — Ajay Kumar Lallu in Uttar Pradesh, Navjot Singh Sidhu in Punjab, Ganesh Godiyal in Uttarakhand, Girish Chodankar in Goa and Nameirakpam Loken Singh in Manipur — to resign.

The grand old party has very little to show performance-wise in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the five states.

Soon after, Uttarakhand Congress president Ganesh Godiyal resigned from the post. Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief Navjot Singh Sidhu also put in his papers today. Goa PCC chief Chodankar, who “accepted failure”, also resigned. Uttarakhand PCC chief Godiyal also tweeted that he had resigned.

“It is just a cosmetic exercise. What the party needed was a clinical surgery. What about the in-charges and general secretaries. They should all go. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has not resigned, neither has Harish Chaudhary or Devender Yadav,” said a senior party leader. While Vadra is general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, Chaudhary is in-charge of Punjab and Yadav in-charge of Uttarakhand.