Taking responsibility of party’s embarrassing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Lok Dal state chief Ashok Arora on Friday resigned from the post.

 Arora has sent his resignation to the INLD’s national president Om Prakash Chautala.

The INLD, which was once the main opposition party in Haryana drew a blank in Lok Sabha polls.

In his resignation letter, Arora said that he is grateful for the love and support provided by the party and Chautala family.

He also expressed gratitude to the party leaders and workers for the support given to him in all these years. “I tried to strengthen the party in your absence but party failed to perform well in the 2019 parliamentary polls. Taking moral responsibility of party’s defeat, I hereby resign from the post of party president,” Arora said in his letter.

In 2014 parliamentary polls, INLD had won two seats despite strong Modi wave. The party had won Hisar and Sirsa Lok Sabha constituencies.

This time, the party not only failed to retain the two seats but its candidates on 10 Lok Sabha seats could not even save their security deposits. 

Arjun Chautala, son of INLD secretary general Abhay Chautala and grandson of INLD chief Om Parkash Chautala, faced a humiliating defeat, finishing at fifth place in Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat.

Though the father-son duo made all out efforts to score a victory in the Lok Sabha polls, the voters of Kurukshetra gave verdict in favor of BJP’s candidate Nayab Saini, who is a Minister of State in Manohar Lal Khattar Government.

INLD’s outgoing MP from Sirsa, Charanjit Singh Rori finished at third place and got just 6.43 percent votes.

Not only this, the party’s vote share declined to dismal 1.89 percent (240258 votes) in 2019 from its vote share of 24.4 per cent in 2014.

The 2019 Lok Sabha election was no less than a matter of survival for the INLD in regional politics. With most of the INLD candidates ending behind the JJP-AAP and BSP-LSP candidates in vote percentage, the INLD’s political fate seems bleak now.

The INLD had this year lost the status of main opposition party in Haryana after the departure of its two MLAs to BJP. Earlier this year, the INLD had also faced defeat in by poll to Jind assembly segment, which the party had won in 2014.

  After its split last year and formation of its splinter group-Jannayak Janta Party, the political fortunes of INLD has been declining in the state.