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The Congress has retained its power in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh but in Haryana, it has fallen short if majority.
The Congress – NCP coalition has swept 146 off 288 seats in Maharashtra, whereas in Arunachal Pradesh, it was an unopposed victory, with Congress grabbing 40 off 60 seats.
It was the electoral showing in Haryana that dulled the Congress' victory edge with the opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) surging from nine seats in the 2005 assembly polls to 31 this time, leaving the Congress with 40 of the 90 assembly seats - still the largest single party but well short of the halfway mark.
"The election results in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Prdesh have shown that the Congress is the only party working for the welfare of the people. For the BJP, it is not just down, but almost out of the national political scene," said party general secretary V. Narayanasamy.
"This is the mandate given by the people for the able leadership of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and general secretary Rahul Gandhi," Narayansamy, who is also minister of state for parliamentary affairs, told.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the spokesperson for BJP, has put the blame for BJP’s loss on the implementation of electronic voting machines, saying that these were the "electronic victory machines" for the Congress.
"It is a sponsored victory for the Congress," Naqvi told reporters.
But BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad accepted the defeat "with humility".
"The results are unexpected... We have to honestly ponder over our weaknesses and act fast," Prasad said.
With the elections now over, the race for the post of Chief Minister has already started in Maharashtra, with Chief minister Ashok Chavan leading the race. A cautious Chavan, while addressing the media, had mentioned that this current 9-month term was not a good base for the decision making process.
Sources report that that in Haryana, Congress has more chances for forming the government, for which discussions with the governor will be held by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
