A preliminary stock-taking meeting at the residence of Sonia Gandhi attended by the top leadership of the party on Monday afternoon, saw an almost deathly silence on the part of the party president, as several leaders tasked with managing the Gujarat strategy, offered to own up moral responsibility. The meeting saw leaders offering views on why the massive crowds in Sonia Gandhi’s public rallies in North Gujarat and Saurashtra — the two regions where Congress fared very badly, did not get converted into votes, and how much this had to do with the poor grassroots level structure that Congress has in Gujarat, where the BJP has a vast presence. 
Attended by the likes of Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, A K Antony, Ahmed Patel, Digvijay Singh, Prithviraj Chavan, AICC general secretary in charge of Gujarat B K Hariprasad, Mukul Wasnik, PCC chief Bharat Solanki, Union Minister from Gujarat Dinshaw Patel, who was crushed by Narendra Modi in Maninagar and some others, the meeting was only a preliminary one, highly-placed party sources said.
“There will be atleast another meeting and thereafter, a detailed analysis of what went wrong would be done,” the sources said, admitting that the initial assessment was that it had “miscalculated” on the strengths of the BJP dissidents like Keshubhai Patel and others.
Mr Hariprasad admitted after the meeting that Congress had “high hopes” from the Saurasthra and North Gujarat regions. The meeting he said, saw a preliminary analysis of the defeat. “The reasons for the outcome would be known only after a full analysis,” he said.
Late planning
AICC media department chairman Veerappa Moily earlier admitted that the party did not start work in Gujarat early enough.
“If we had started right from after the 2004 general elections in which Congress had won in about 91 Assembly segments, perhaps the results would have been different. We should have taken that forward,” he said.
Describing BJP’s win as “most unfortunate”, he said, “Mr Modi won by accident, and not by incident, as he used the communal agenda instead of the development route. The truth will come out once the Nanavati Commission report is out,” he said.
Asked if Ms Gandhi’s use of the term “maut ka saudagar” backfired on Congress as Mr Modi used it to his advantage, Mr Moily countered, “It was not a mistake. If that had not come up, Mr Modi would have found some other excuse to rake up the communal agenda.”
“Congress has no regret. We lost because we stood for principles of secularism,” he said.
Asked if Congress saw Mr Modi shift to national politics in the future, he said the BJP leader would never be able to do so with his communal agenda.
“Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee had become the Prime Minister only because of his liberal face. My advice to Mr Modi as an elder brother is to shun the communal agenda,” he said, adding that Congress would play the role of a constructive opposition in Gujarat.
However, replying to another question on whether Mr Modi could become the BJP president after his performance in this election in Gujarat in which he won eaasily, Mr Moily said, “That would be the saddest day for the country.”