The Great Conquest Of Amethi And BJP's Killer Blow On Congress In UP

The watershed is Amethi, the impregnable fortress of the Congress. It바카라�s been breached바카라�fallen, as have the stocks of the party which was hoping to turn the tab­les on the Narendra Modi-led NDA this election. Party president Rahul Gandhi바카라�s loss to BJP바카라�s Smriti Irani in his family바카라�s long-standing pocket borough바카라�the first since the defeat of Sanjay Gandhi post-Emergency in 1977바카라�is a dead giveaway to the plummeting fortunes of the 134-year-old organisation in the heart of the Hindi heartland, or for that matter the ent­ire northern belt, where it held sway for decades until the advent of the BJP.

Of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress could win only one바카라�Sonia Gandhi바카라�s Rae Bareli. Its performance in the remaining Hindi-speaking states was equally dismal, despite the fact that it had won the assembly polls in the three major states of Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh barely six months ago. That was evidently passé. The party could win only three of the 65 seats in these states where it was hoping to replicate its assembly poll feat. In Bihar and Jharkhand too, it had to remain content with only one seat each. Elsewhere in the North, it faced total rout in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and, Delhi. The only northern state, where it had a face-saving result, was Punjab where it won eight of the 13 seats. It was obvious that Rahul바카라�s extensive Modi-centric 바카라�Chowkidar chor hai바카라� campaign failed and the electorate rejected it big time, choosing to give Modi another chance to push his policies. Like the Congress, the AAP failed to win any seat in Delhi and Bhagwant Mann turned out to be its only sitting MP from Punjab, managing to retain his seat in what ultimately turned out to be a one-sided Modi-versus-all contest this side of the Vindhyas.