By IANS
Ahmedabad : A day after its humiliating defeat in the Gujarat assembly polls, the Congress Monday was in self-introspection mode, admitting to mistakes rather than playing a blame game.
“I take full responsibility for the defeat,” said Bharatsinh Solanki, the state unit president who was in charge of the election campaign.
“We have not been able to connect with the electorate effectively,” Solanki told IANS Monday.
Asked if there was any rural-urban divide in the voting pattern, he confessed: “No, we have lost across Gujarat.”
Solanki, who could have been a chief ministerial candidate if his party had won, said the election results would be analysed over the week.
Unlike the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that had projected Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the top post in Gandhinagar, the Congress had not named any leader as its chief ministerial candidate.
The Congress failed to capitalise on the odds against Modi, including BJP rebels and the anti-incumbency factor, and managed to add only eight seats to its December 2002 tally of 51 in a house of 182 members – the BJP once again romped home with a two-third majority.
Expectations for the Congress were high because the party had improved in a big way its tally in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
Arjun Modhvadia, leader of the opposition in the outgoing assembly and another Congressman who could have been chief minister, said: “The defeat is due to organisational weakness. We will now have to work on it. We will have to address this issue not for once but continuously.”
Both leaders, however, refused to directly blame any group, putting the past history of factionalism aside.
But some state Congress functionaries hinted that the election campaign was orchestrated by the central leadership.
An officer-bearer echoed the widespread opinion that party chief Sonia Gandhi’s controversial remarks, terming the Modi administration as “merchants of death”, at an election meeting Dec 3 backfired, giving Modi a handle to turn the campaign to his pet theme of Hindutva and terrorism.