Congress starts wondering what really went wrong

NEW DELHI: An introspective Congress party, reeling under the impact of Narendra Modi’s stunning victory in Gujarat, on Monday began a post-mortem of its dismal showing without apportioning the blame to the top leadership.

“Everybody is responsible” for the defeat, AICC General Secretary BK Hariprasad said in a cryptic remark after the debacle had been discussed by party president Sonia Gandhi with senior party leaders as well as those from its Gujarat unit.

While the AICC officially rejected the idea that the party chief’s controversial remarks gave Modi an edge, there is a view in a section of the Congress that the party “blinked” following the row over Gandhi’s speech and its campaign became confused.

This section felt that the “master campaigner”” and “demagogue” exploited the situation to the hilt to derail the Congress campaign based on the development plank and the party failed to recover.

The meeting at Gandhi's 10, Janpath residence, also attended by senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh and AK Antony, saw some leaders stressing that depending on BJP rebels was a mistake. Some others, however, countered it, saying the seats held by the rebels were already a lost cause.

Another lacuna, it was felt by many, was that the party had no leader at the state level to match Modi’s “shrewdness”, which helped the chief minister to raise his profile by always referring to Ms Gandhi and the prime minister.