The Congress State head office in the State capital saw sparse gathering of party workers and a few position holders either watching the election news on television or discussing the losses suffered by the Congress in Uttarakhand and elsewhere across the nation.
The Congress Bhawan on Rajpur Road generally has more vehicles parked and more people inside the various rooms in the building than it did on Friday, when the counting of votes polled in the lok Sabha election brought little for the Congress leaders and members to cheer about. However, interestingly, for some leaders and members of the Congress in Uttarakhand, the defeat of the party candidates from all the five parliamentary constituencies in the State also came as a kind of relief as they appeared to be relaxed without the need for repeatedly stating the party's stance regarding the parliamentary polls.
Inspite of negative feedback from the ground and exit polls favouring the BJP, the party leaders had continued to maintain till Thursday that the party would win from all the five constituencies in Uttarakhand.When this correspondent reached the Congress Bhawan, the party State general secretary Vijay Saraswat and party State spokesman Dhirendra Pratap along with former Congress city chief lal Chand Sharma were having packed lunch while the television continued broadcasting latest data about the BJP sweeping the polls.
After denying a Modi wave till about some days ago, Pratap acknowledged that the BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi did influence the voters. "Nothing succeeds like success. We welcome the peoples mandate in the lok Sabha polls and will take our defeat graciously," he said.
He also appealed the party workers to not lose heart due to the election result while exhorting them to work together for regaining the confidence of the people. Pratap also warned the BJP against its "designs to destabilise the elected Congress led State Government in Uttarakhand." He said that the BJP makes any attempt to oust the State government from office, the Congress would not remain a silent spectator and lakhs of party workers in the State would come on the road to save the democratically elected State Government.
Dismissing reports that the defeat of the Congress from all five parliamentary constituencies in Uttarakhand was a mandate against the State government headed by chief minister Harish Rawat, the Congress spokesman said, "It was a vote for change and the Uttarakhand CM had done a splendid job in leading the party election campaign from the front," he said.