New Delhi: The anti-Congress wave sweeping across India has engulfed Delhi and Rajasthan, dislodging the 15-year-old Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi and unseating Ashok Gehlot's 5-year-old government in Rajasthan.
The wave also had a rippling effect on Madhya Pradesh, where BJP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is heading towards a record hattrick, and in Chhattisgarh, where despite anti-incumbency factors, chief minister Dr Raman Singh may barely manage to retain power with a slender majority, only after the last result shows up.
The reason for the Congress debacle is clear: people are fed up of rising prices and corruption, and the UPA government at the Centre must now see the writing on the wall.
Not once did Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party vice president Rahul Gandhi touch upon rising prices in their speeches in these four states during the campaign.
The Congress was complacent both in Delhi and Rajasthan, so much so, that its leaders Sheila Dikshit and Ashok Gehlot were rubbishing opinion polls and exit poll projections, with Digivijaya Singh saying he would throw all such opinion polls into the dustbin.
The time for self-introspection in Congress has come, and very little time is left, with the April-May Lok Sabha elections breathing down its neck.
Already there are murmurs inside the ruling party seeking party chief Sonia Gandhi to take up the reins with a strong hand, and carry out major changes both in the party and the government.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi may have a lot to answer.
It was he who handpicked candidates in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chhattisgarh. His advisers ignored warning bells coming from the intelligence that the "aam aadmi" was angry with Congress over rising prices of commodities like onions, tomatoes and potatoes, with huge scams coming out into the open. His advisers put all the eggs in a single basket, based on inputs from Gehlot and Sheila Dikshit.
It is a time for analysis inside the BJP too. The party has made up its mind to project Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, and he shall remain so, but Modi's charisma needs a further booster from the state party leaders.
In Delhi, BJP was confused about projecting its chief ministerial candidate till the last moment, even as AAP was gaining ground among the voters angry with the Congress.
Modi's last-minute call to Delhi voters that "jo Anna ke nahin huey, woh aapke kaise hongey" (Those AAP leaders who ditched Anna, how can you trust them), had a limited effect. The voters had, by that time, made up their mind, with half of the anti-Congress voters going for the BJP and the rest with the AAP.
The canvas for the Lok Sabha elections early next year will be a very large one.
There are states like UP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, where regional satraps rule, and it would be an uphill task for Narendra Modi and his team.
