Congress stunned by Assembly elections results

New Delhi: The Congress's poor show in the five state elections have clearly taken the sheen off party General Secretary and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi and stunned its leaders, who had hoped for a much better result.

In Uttar Pradesh, despite a high-voltage campaign by Rahul Gandhi, the Congress has failed to notch up an impressive score and was trailing in the fourth spot behind the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The party has been ousted from power in Goa by the BJP and is trailing decisively to the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine in the Punjab.

The saving grace for the grand old party of India has been Manipur where O Ibobi Singh has led the party back to power for the third consecutive term. In Uttarakhand, too, the party is involved in a tough fight with the BJP.

Congress leaders have been quick to spring to Rahul's defence and blamed the party organistaion and candidates for the party's poor show in Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi backed Rahul Gandhi while dismissing criticism that his aggressive campaign failed to result in major gains for the party in the state.

"This lack of trust is not for Rahul Gandhi, but for the state leadership and the party. The onus for the results lies with the candidates, the organisation and the candidate selection committee. It's not the campaigner, it's the candidate who is responsible. The campaigner did his job brilliantly," she said about Rahul Gandhi.

She said that there was no reason why Rahul Gandhi should be blamed. "I don't see a reason why Rahul Gandhi should be blamed. He is a brilliant campaigner, a popular national leader. Rahul Gandhi gave us the mood, the environment. We have to see where we went wrong," she said.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said he did not expect the loss in Punjab and was hoping for a much improved show in Uttar Pradesh.

"I am extremely disappointed with Punjab. Apart from CNN-IBN everyone gave a clear victory to Congress in Punjab. I will be baffled if we don't win Punjab. If we lose Punjab, I will be very disappointed," said Singhvi.

Saying that Congress's loss in Punjab required introspection, he said, "Punjab requires deep introspection, inquiry and putting blame on those responsible. We will introspect deeply and will have an inquiry."

Hoping that Congress would be able to form the government in Uttrakhand, he said that the figures were too close to call. He added that only Manipur has voted for the Congress and the party never expected to do well in Goa.

Even though the Congress tried its best to shield Rahul from criticism for the party's poor show in Uttar Pradesh, results show that his magic failed against the well-oiled machinery of the Samajwadi Party, whose campaign was led by Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Akhilesh Yadav.

Rahul's strategy of waging a guerrilla warfare type of election campaign has clearly not cut much ice with the Uttar Pradesh electorate. The party had pushed all its top leaders including Congress President Sonia Gandhi for campaign in the state but none of it made much of a difference to the final outcome.

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