TN Cong chief quits after poll debacle

TNCC president KV Thangkabalu who led the party to one of its worst drubbings in the state on Saturday accepted moral responsibility for the humiliating defeat and announced decision to step down from the party post. HT reports.

TNCC president KV Thangkabalu who led the party to one of its worst drubbings in the state on Saturday accepted moral responsibility for the humiliating defeat and announced decision to step down from the party post. He told press persons that he would send his resignation to AICC president Sonia Gandhi.

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Out of the 63 the Congress contested, it could win just five. The TNCC president himself lost the prestigious Mylapore seat that he contested disregarding the claims of other winnable candidates.Among those who sought the ticket from this seat were R Thiagarajan, a supporter of union home minster P Chidambaram and Sve Shekhar, actor and sitting MLA who left AIADMK to join the Congress.

Thnagkabalu was was humbled by AIADMK's R Rajalakshmi by a margin of 29,204 votes. Several senior party candidates like deputy leader of Congress legislature party D Yashoda, senior legislator Peter Alphonse were among the losers. All the ten youth Congress candidates too failed to enter the assembly.

In fact, all through the election campaigning, not a day passed when his effigy was not burnt by his opponents within the party, who hold him personally responsible for the plight of the party. For many days, his opponents also held demonstrations with posters demanding his removal at the party headquarters.

On Friday after the Congress rout became certain, workers of a faction of the Congress burnt the effigy of TNCC president at Coimbatore.