Maharashtra CM attributes Congress` rout in polls to Centre`s policies

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who spearheaded Congress` Lok Sabha election campaign in the state, attributed the party`s rout to some policies of the Central government.

"It is difficult to concretise (about the party`s poor showing). A lot of it cannot be articulated. We will have to find out whether communal polarisation took place or not," Chavan said, during an interaction with reporters here on Tuesday. Saying that Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi carried out his party`s election campaign in an aggressive and professional manner, Chavan claimed that his party also campaigned in an aggressive manner. "He (Modi) did campaign in a professional manner. Even we could have done in a similar way, since nobody had stopped us from doing so. However, even we did our campaigning in an aggressive manner," he said. Congress has won only two (Ashok Chavan from Nanded and Rajiv Satav from Hingoli) out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. Refusing to accept that there was a "Modi wave", he questioned why its impact was not felt in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha. "We lacked in communication (with the people). Also, UPA government`s decisions like scrapping of coal blocks, delays in giving environmental clearance and others were important factors. Many of these issues affected the common people. The middle-class even linked inflation to corruption," he said. Chavan said from tomorrow onwards, review meetings would be held to analyse the party`s debacle in the state.