Citing an instance, a senior leader said that former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh showed his mettle in Amritsar by handing out a convincing defeat to BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
A general view in the Congress is that the issue of price rise and corruption went against the party and the situation was exploited to the hilt by Narendra Modi by tapping the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Downplaying suggestions that the party's unprecedented poor show put question marks on the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Jairam Ramesh and senior party leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi have maintained that it was a collective responsibility.
"The scale of our defeat has been staggering. Most unexpected. We really have to understand why this happened-- to what extend is this Modi wave--to what extent is this anti-incumbency wave. These are all factors that we will have to understand," Ramesh said yesterday.
Shastri said he will be writing a letter to Rahul Gandhi in a couple of days listing the reasons, which according to him led to this kind of defeat for Congress.
As several Union Cabinet ministers lost in their respective seats miserably, a senior party leader said that there was a total disconnect of the ministers with party workers.
Amid murmurs in the party against Rahul's functioning, the leader dismissed suggestions about the "waning" impact of the Gandhi family and said,"we have seen how Congress fared without the family".
The Lok Sabha results, like the Delhi assembly poll results, have sent shock waves in the party. There is a a view that Congress has paid the price for not having strong regional leaders.
Citing an instance, a senior leader said that former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh showed his mettle in Amritsar by handing out a convincing defeat to BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
A general view in the Congress is that the issue of price rise and corruption went against the party and the situation was exploited to the hilt by Narendra Modi by tapping the anti-incumbency sentiment.
Downplaying suggestions that the party's unprecedented poor show put question marks on the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Jairam Ramesh and senior party leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi have maintained that it was a collective responsibility.
"The scale of our defeat has been staggering. Most unexpected. We really have to understand why this happened, to what extend is this Modi wave, to what extent is this anti-incumbency wave. These are all factors that we will have to understand," Ramesh said on Friday.
Shastri said he will be writing a letter to Rahul Gandhi in a couple of days listing the reasons, which according to him led to this kind of defeat for Congress.
