Harish Rawat takes responsibility for Uttarakhand poll loss

Congress' poll campaign head for Uttarakhand Harish Rawat on Sunday expressed anguish and an acute sense of embarrassment over his failure to guide the party to victory in the state assembly election, saying he could not rise to the expectations of the party leadership that had reposed its trust in him.

In a Facebook post hours before he left for Delhi to attend a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, Mr Rawat, who also lost from the Lalkuwa seat, said he did not know how he would face party chief Sonia Gandhi.

''How much trust she had in me. All the top leaders of Congress had so much trust in me. All of them expected me to bring the Congress back to power. There must have been some shortcoming on my part because of which I could not meet their expectations," the 73-year-old former chief minister said.