The Congress party on Wednesday dismissed all its units in Himachal Pradesh, almost five months after the grand old party’s abysmal performance in the Lok Sabha elections in the hilly state.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress failed to win any four seats. The party could not even win the Mandi seat, where it fielded Vikramaditya Singh against Kangana Ranaut.

In an official statement, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary KC Venugopal said Mallikarjun Kharge has approved the dissolution of the entire Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), district presidents and of Himachal Pradesh Block Congress Committees, with immediate effect.

At present, Pratibha Singh is the state Congress president. Singh, who is also a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), was appointed to the post in 2022. Despite the dissolution of the state unit, there is no indication of a change in Singh’s position in the CWC.

Factionalism within the grand old party was also on display during the Rajya Sabha polls earlier this year, when Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost to BJP’s Harsh Mahajan. Singhvi lost as six Congress MLAs voted in favor of the BJP leader.

Later, the six MLAs were disqualified for opposing the party’s vote in favor of the Finance Bill in the Assembly. Due to the political crisis in the state, the party’s strength in the 68-member assembly increased from 40 to 34.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Vikramaditya Singh announced his resignation from Sukhu’s cabinet, citing alleged attempts to humiliate and undermine him.

Singh also noted that the grand old party fought the 2022 assembly elections in the name of his father and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, but failed to find a small piece of land on Mall Road to install the statue of the former CM.

However, he later resumed his resignation in the name of “the general interest and the unity of the party”. No changes have been made to the CCP since the party won 40 of 68 seats in the 2022 legislative elections.

This, however, is not the first time that the Congress has disbanded its Himachal unit. In 2019, the party took a similar decision but retained Kuldeep Singh Rathore as state president despite the dissolution of the state unit.