As India’s Congress party looks for reasons behind its worst-ever electoral defeat, daggers are already out before the important Congress Working Committee meeting scheduled on Monday.

Senior party leaders, say press reports, are severely critical of some key advisers of Rahul Gandhi, while some have chosen to go public finding fault with the ticket distribution.

Those who are in the firing line of a section of leaders include Jairam Ramesh, Mohan Gopal, Madhusudan Mistry, Mohan Prakash and Ajay Maken, the media reported.

There is also speculation that Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi could offer to resign during the meeting, which has been called to take stock of the political situation in the aftermath of results.

A nine percent decline in the Congress’ vote share to 19.3 per cent in the just concluded elections for the 16th Lok Sabha from its showing in the 2009 polls saw the party lose 162 seats to get only 44, according to an analysis of results for the 16th Lok Sabha elections.

For the BJP which scored a simple majority on its own with 282 seats, the vote share was 31 percent, 12 per cent more than the previous polls which helped it get an extra 166 seats.

Only one in ten lawmakers elected are female, despite pledges by politicians from all sides during the campaign to empower women, research published Saturday said.

Women candidates won 61 out of 543 seats in Parliament, a small increase on the number in the outgoing one, data from the parliamentary think-tank PRS Legislative Research showed.