After the Lok Sabha debacle, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala took to Twitter to inform that Congress has decided to not send spokespersons on television debates for a month. All media channels and their editors have been requested not to place Congress representatives on their shows.
https://twitter.com/rssurjewala/status/1133924556324954118?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This decision comes a week after Congress suffered a humiliating loss in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Shrinking to a tally of 52 seats out of a total of 542 in the Lok Sabha polls is in itself a huge embarrassment for the grand old national party, given the fact that it will now not even be able to elect a Leader of Opposition.
In first back-to-back majority in the Lok Sabha polls for a single party in over three decades, the Modi-led BJP won 303 seats out of 542 in the Lok Sabha polls, handing out a crushing defeat to the Congress and many other political opponents.
However, it seems that the Congress has followed the footsteps of the Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who too, after meeting the similar fate in the Lok Sabha elections, had, last week, dismissed the panel of spokespersons of his party.
The party had asked TV channels not to invite any of the party leaders who were acting as spokespersons for any debate or talk show. In a press release, party’s chief spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said that Samajwadi Party has cancelled the appointment of all spokespersons with immediate effect.
The Samajwadi Party had contested on 37 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh but got just five seats while its ally, the Bahujan Samaj Party, fielded candidates on 38 seats and won 10. Congress could win one seat.
Meanwhile, after the landslide victory, Narendra Modi is all set to take oath as Prime Minister of India for his second term at 7 pm on Thursday. President Ram Nath Kovind will administer the oath of office and secrecy to the Prime Minister and other members of the Union Council at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. A record number of 8,000 guests are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony.