Rahul's offer to resign suicidal: Lalu Prasad

Lalu Prasad, who is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital in Ranchi on Tuesday tweeted that Rahul Gandhi's decision to quit as Congress President would be suicidal as it will offer a chance to the opposition to call the new president as a puppet of Rahul & Sonia that will continue till the next elections.

Patna: RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday termed Congress president Rahul Gandhi's offer to resign as suicidal and said it would amount to "falling into the BJP's trap".

Gandhi's offer to step down as Congress president would not only be suicidal for his party but for all the social and political forces battling against the Sangh Parivar, Prasad said in an analysis of the Lok Sabha poll results, published in an English daily, the link of which he shared on his Twitter handle.

Any new president of the Congress would be considered as a puppet of Rahul and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the perception would continue till the next general election, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president said.

The moment someone outside the Gandhi-Nehru family replaced Rahul Gandhi, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah brigade would paint the new leader as a "puppet" remote-controlled by him and his mother Sonia Gandhi, he said. Why should Rahul Gandhi give such an opportunity to his political detractors, Prasad asked.

"Rahul's offer to resign 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 like India," he said in a tweet.

After his party's Lok Sabha poll debacle, Rahul Gandhi had offered to resign on May 25 during a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), which had unanimously rejected his offer and authorised him to overhaul and restructure the party at all levels.

The CWC meeting was held in the backdrop of the Congress winning just 52 Lok Sabha seats and drawing a nought in 18 states and Union Territories. Gandhi himself lost from the family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, though he won from Wayanad in Kerala.

Prasad, who was lodged in a Ranchi jail following his conviction in several fodder scam cases, is currently under treatment for blood pressure, sugar and kidney ailment at the Ranchi-based Rajendra Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences since December 2017.

On the opposition parties failing to build a national narrative, the RJD chief said, "All across northern, eastern and western India, they (opposition) fought it as though it was a state election. They failed to synchronise their strategy and actions.

"The people were looking for a national alternative, which the opposition parties, fighting in a disoriented manner in their respective states, failed to provide," he said.

Stunned by the rout of the RJD in Bihar and Jharkhand, Prasad skipped lunch for two days after the declaration of the poll results on May 23. This is the first instance after its inception in 1997 that the RJD could not win a parliamentary seat in Bihar and the second time in a row that it failed to open account in Jharkhand.

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