Maken stays as Delhi Cong chief, says Rahul asked him to continue in post
Congress party leader Ajay Maken and PC Chacko will continue to be Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president and the party’s in-charge of Delhi affairs respectively. The resignations of both the leaders were not accepted .
Maken and Chacko had resigned after taking moral responsibility for the Congress’ defeat in Delhi municipal elections. The party won only 30 out of 270 seats in the polls and finished third after BJP and AAP.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Delhi pradesh Congress committee President Maken said, “Rahul Gandhiji asked me to continue. He said that the increase in vote percentage was encouraging.”
“The party leadership heard both of us and then Rahul Gandhi asked me to continue, to take things to their logical conclusion and make Congress the number one party in Delhi again,” he said.
Some party leaders, including former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, were critical of Maken and had given public statements against him after the municipal poll results were out.
Maken, however, expressed satisfaction over the party’s increased vote share in the recent polls. “Our vote share was 9% in the Delhi Assembly election in 2015. It has gone up to 22% in the MCD polls, indicating that the traditional voters are coming back to us,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Maken said that the ruling party was the B-team of the BJP and its top leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, were “hand in glove” with the RSS.