NEW DELHI: Terrified by the prospect of a slugfest in its ranks in their absence, India’s defeated Congress party on Monday rejected the resignations of Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi from the posts of vice president and president of the party respectively.

The Congress suffered its most humiliating defeat in elections this month and both the Gandhis owned responsibility for the debacle. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh then told the Congress Working Committee meeting here that it was in fact his government that was

responsible for the party’s poor showing, in which it got 44 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, sought on Sunday to preempt any direct or indirect attack on the family, saying that “all, including myself” were responsible for the party’s debacle.

“How can you blame any individual for this result? It is the collective responsibility of both the party and the government. All, including myself, are responsible for the party’s loss,” Patel told The Indian Express when asked about party leaders’ resentment at the way Rahul ran the election campaign.

Reports quoted party sources as reporting rumblings in Rahul Gandhi’s team, with his aides trying to blame each other. Some targeted Rahul’s close aide Kanishka Singh for “misleading” him — about the party’s prospects and the poll strategy in terms of selection of candidates, campaign plan and deployment of resources — and blocking party leaders’ “access” to the Congress vice-president, another section targeted Mohan Gopal, Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies, who was reported to be calling the shots in the team.

Some CWC members also expressed disagreement with the party leadership’s decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh, which resulted in the party being routed from a state in which it had won 33 seats in 2009.

Congress sources confided that there had been “a thinking” in the top party leadership that if the party did “decently” in the Lok Sabha elections, Sonia could hand over the reins of the party to Rahul. “Given the anger against him after this result, she may have to postpone her retirement plans for we don’t know how long,” said a Congress leader.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2014