Afzal said that while the party could not take to the people the “failures of BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government in MP” thorough its campaign, BJP was successful in portraying Congress Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's popular schemes negatively in Rajasthan. He also said that had Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was made the Campaign Committee chief of the party for Madhya Pradesh two months before election, would have been given the charge earlier, the results could have been better.
Afzal also said that though Congress managed to rein in the infighting in Madhya Pradesh unit and brought all leaders together, this message could not reach the people. Sources also that there were shortcomings in assessment and 40 sitting MLAs lost.
The expectation was that not more than 10 will lose their seats. Leaders also pointed out that those candidates, who polled even 91000 votes, lost. Congress had factored a swing of five per cent in their favour, which did not materialise, they argued adding that 35 of their candidates lost despite polling more than 60,000 votes in Madhya Pradesh.
At the AICC briefing, Afzal said the party somehow could not take the message of Gehlot's popular schemes to the people “while the BJP's CM candidate made a strong campaign to project those schemes as failures”.
He said the party will have to think over why people did not vote for Congress despite so much development in Delhi in last 15 years by Sheila Dikshit's government. In Chhattisgarh, he said the government led by BJP's Raman Singh took advantage of the subsidy given by the Centre on foodgrains and Congress “failed” to make people aware of this fact.
He, however, maintained that the media department of the party worked hard.
