india

Updated: May 17, 2020 19:25 IST

Jailed RJD leader Lalu Prasad has said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s decision to quit, following a demoralizing poll defeat, is ‘suicidal’, according to reports. The Congress won 52 of the 542 seats in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections while the PM Modi-led NDA notched up 352

“Rahul’s offer to resign is suicidal. Opposition parties had the common goal to dislodge BJP but failed to build a national narrative. The result in a particular election can never alter the reality in as diverse and plural a country as India,” the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, who is serving a jail term in Ranchi in a fodder scam case, wrote in The Telegraph.

Lalu Prasad’s RJD, currently headed by son Tejashwi, was decimated in Bihar with the party failing to get even one of the state’s 40 Lok Sabha seats. The party which contested on 19 seats in alliance with Congress, HAM(S), VIP and RLSP, posted its worst performance ever since its inception in 1997 after breaking out of the Janata Dal.

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The RJD leader in his analysis wrote that Rahul Gandhi quitting would amount to walking into the BJP trap. “The moment someone beyond the Gandhi-Nehru family replaces Rahul, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah brigade will paint the new leader as ‘puppet’ remotely controlled by Rahul and Sonia Gandhi…why should Rahul give such opportunity t his political detractors,” Prasad wrote.

He said the entire Opposition should take collective responsibility and introspect what went wrong. The reason for defeat is not far to seek, he added.

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