Election 2014 results: Rahul, Sonia accept responsibility for Congress defeat

New Delhi: The leaders of India's defeated Congress party, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, admitted personal responsibility on Friday for the disastrous election results which came after 10 years in power.

"We understand that victory and loss is part of democracy," party president Sonia told reporters in New Delhi as preliminary figures showed the Congress heading for its worst ever performance.

"We respect this decision. I take responsibility for this defeat," she added, in remarks echoed by her 43-year-old son, who led national campaigning for the first time.

Congress has dominated Indian politics since independence, mostly with a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty at its head. The famous bloodline has provided three prime ministers.

But Friday's figures have already triggered speculation about their future after a lacklustre campaign by Rahul, a former management consultant whose political skills are widely doubted.

"I would like to start by congratulating the new government. They have been given a mandate by the people of this country. We have done pretty badly. As vice-president of the party I hold myself responsible," Rahul said.

Preliminary results at the end of the marathon six-week election showed the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by hardliner Narendra Modi on track for the first parliamentary majority by a single party in 30 years.

Finding it hard to digest the humiliating defeat, a rattled Congress admitted a disconnect with the people and said the party needs to introspect and rework its strategy.

Senior leaders conceded that they were not expecting such a big downfall.

"We were not expecting Congress to do very well but we had also not bargained for such a massive defeat," a Congress general secretary said on the condition of anonymity.

The Lok Sabha results, like the Delhi Assembly poll results, have sent shock waves in the party, party spokesperson Meem Afzal said.

He said the violence in Muzzaffarnagar last year led to communal polarisation in Uttar Pradesh with a split in the Dalit and backward vote helping the BJP.

A Muslim leader said the Congress suffered massively due to a split in the minority votes that affected the results in many constituencies of the country.

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.

Partymen said the performance in Uttar Pradesh showed that the 'charisma' of the first family of the party was fast fading.

Congress, which had as many as 22 seats in Lok Sabha, has so far gained success in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the pocket borough of the Gandhi-Nehru family.

With over a dozen Union Cabinet ministers trailing in their respective seats, partymen said it reflected the public anger against the government and the disconnect it has with the people.

Partymen also feel that Modi outshown the Congress in every department of the electoral game through his campaign blitzkrieg.

Knives are also drawn out against some leaders close to Rahul Gandhi for their perceived failure to reach out to the people.

The party has drawn a blank in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and a few other states.

A senior leader said Union Minister Jairam Ramesh was the coordinator of the party's war room for the poll and it does not behove of him to say that the party failed to reach out to the people.

They were apparently referring to the recent remarks of Ramesh that top Congress leaders were "found lacking" in political communication and the party was unable to effectively counter BJP's aggressive campaign of projecting UPA as a corrupt regime.

A refrain of partymen has been that the three top leaders -- Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party chief Sonia Gandhi and party vice chief Rahul Gandhi -- had hardly communicated to the people the achievements of the UPA II.

Congress would see its tally dipping to a new low his time, even lower than 114 in 1999.

Questions will be raised in the Congress as to what went wrong when the campaign was led by none other Rahul Gandhi.