Modi's 'black' magic failed, says Congress

The Gujarat unit of the Congress, after securing ten out of the 26 Lok Sabha seats, on Saturday claimed that state chief minister Narendra Modi's 'black' magic failed to work in favour of the National Democratic Alliance.

"The NDA will now have to suffer the consequence of projecting Modi as their star campaigner. Out of the 200 parliamentary constituencies that he addressed outside Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party has won in only 38," leader of the opposition in the state assembly Shaktisinh Gohil told media persons in Ahmedabad.

"Modi's black magic has failed to work for the BJP and after looking at Gujarat results, I believe it is the beginning of the end of his black magic in the state," he said.

Terming the performance of the Congress in Gujarat as a victory of love over ego (Modi's) Gohil said that the CM was hiding like a fox in his hole. "Modi, who used to walk like a lion during victory, has now hidden himself in a hole like a fox," he said.

Gohil said that it was the charisma of Rahul Gandhi, sacrifice of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and the faith of people in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that has worked in favour of the party.

Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel said that the party was satisfied with its performance in the Lok Sabha elections after it secured 10 out of the 26 seats in the state.

"We are by and large satisfied with the results of the 15th Lok Sabha elections. We could have probably got 2-3 seats more but we couldn't," Patel said.

"The party was confident of winning the Panchamahal and Sabarkantha seats but unfortunately we lost the two seats," he added. Union minister and senior Congress leader Shankarsinh Vaghela was contesting from Panchmahal, where he lost to BJP's Parbathsinh Chauhan by over two thousand votes, while Congresses' Mahusudan Mistry contesting from Sabarkantha lost to Mahendrasinh Chauhan by over 17,000 votes.

Patel said the delimitation had also affected the results of the election. "Sabarknatha and Kheda are the two seats which lost a large portion of Congress areas due to the delimitation rules," he said.

Patelpointed out that all those Congressmen who joined BJP after being denied tickets by the party, have lost.

"Three defectors from the Congress who joined BJP -- Bhavhsinh Rathore (Patan), Somji Damor (Dahod) and Lalji Mer (Surendranagar) have lost," he said.

"The people have given their verdict against the tainted candidates put up by the BJP from Patan and Ananad constituencies," Patel added.