CHANDIGARH: Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday said he has resigned as the party's Punjab chief.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Tuesday asked its state unit chiefs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur to put in their papers after the party's drubbing in the recently held Assembly polls in these states.
The cricketer-turned-politician shared information about his resignation on his twitter handle. "As desired by the Congress President I have sent my resignation....," his tweet read. In his resignation letter written to Sonia Gandhi, Sidhu wrote, "I hereby resign as President (PPCC)."
The Congress faced a humiliating defeat in Punjab, winning only 18 seats, while the Aam Aadmi Party romped home with 92 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly. Sidhu himself lost to the Aam Aadmi Party's Jeevanjot Kaur from the Amritsar East Assembly seat by 6,750 votes.
He had taken over as the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president in July last year. Several Punjab Congress candidates on Tuesday had blamed indiscipline and infighting among the state unit leaders for the party's crushing defeat.