Panaji, March 15 : Taking moral responsibility for the party’s poor performance in the recently-concluded assembly elections in Goa, State Congress president Girish Chodankar resigned from the post on Tuesday. According to sources, Chodankar had sent his resignation letter to the All India Congress Committee (AICC). The Congress had contested this assembly election in alliance with Goa Forward Party (GFP). While Congress could win 11 seats, GFP emerged victorious in one seat. The party, which had failed to form government in 2017 despite emerging as the single largest party with 17 seats, was expecting to get a comfortable majority in the state assembly and form government on its own, cashing in on anti-incumbency against ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But the results were otherwise and BJP claimed 20 seats out of 40 it had contested. On the day of counting, Chodankar had said that he was ready to quit taking moral responsibility and time had come that the party got a new state president. Leaders like Sankalp Amonkar, Elvis Gomes, Digambar Kamat and Alex Sequeira are front runners for the post, the sources said. Sankal Amonkar and Digambar Kamat have been elected to the state assembly this year. Even before the elections were to be held, there was speculation of a change in guard in Goa Congress but the party high command put the speculation to rest by retaining him. However, Aleixo Sequeria was appointed as working president of the party. This was seen as the party’s move to mollify the old guards who were upset with the working style of Chodankar, whose tenure was marked with the poor performance in the local body polls and division in the party. His tenure also saw the party losing most of the MLAs and at the end only one sitting MLA contesting the assembly elections. Several party leaders, like South Goa MP Francisco Sardinha and MLA Reginaldo Lourenço had publicly called for his ouster from the party. AKM GK