Jaipur, Dec 05: A day after the saffron surge wiped out the congress from power in the Hindi heartland, Congressmen in Rajasthan, small and big, were wondering what struck them. The PCC office was deserted, but for a handful of party functionaries collating information about the margin of victory in different constituencies.
Barely 29 of the 126 sitting Congress MLAs who were given the ticket once again could retain their seats. Among the 21 new faces tried out, only four could win -- three of them sons of senior leaders Nawal Kishore Sharma, Parasram Maderna and Natwar Singh.
While Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was re-elected from Sardarpura, both deputy chief ministers and 27 other ministers of the state cabinet lost the polls.
A day after the rout, senior Congress leaders appeared unsure of what went wrong for the party.
The blame game had begun.
PCC chief Girija Vyas kept trying to pacify angry party workers yesterday while former PCC chief and CWC member Nawal Kishore Sharma blamed the Gehlot government for the debacle.
''It is clear the people have rejected the Gehlot government's work,'' former chief minister Shiv Charan Mathur, who managed to retain his Mandalgarh seat with a margin of 859 votes, said.
Bureau Report