Where has Priyanka's magic gone?

Catch up on the latest capital gossip in this week's Dilli Gupshup.

Gloomy-faced, glazed-eyed Congressmen are mourning a blow from which they may never recover.

No, we are not talking of the drubbing they received in the recent polls (haanji, we do know they won in Manipur. But, you know, they did just about scrape though in Uttarakhand and they did lose miserably in Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Punjab!)

Nor are we talking about the fact that they even lost Amethi and Rae Bareli, both of which have been Congress bastions for decades.

Aisa hai ki, these Congress-wallahs are stunned that their last big hope has fizzled out. They are really reeling, poor guys!

Priyanka Gandhi, who had been their biggest trump card thus far, just couldn't work her magic this time.

While Rahul Gandhi has always been an 'acceptable' leader, it was Priyanka whom the Congressmen always considered their Bramha-asthra.

All thanks, not to her political acumen (which is still to be proved!) but to her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother, the unforgettable Indira Gandhi, her candid style of speaking and her warm smile.

Everyone believed that Priyanka would, some day, lead the Congress to a thumping victory at the polls.

And then, Amethi and Rae Bareli happened!

Oh dear! What will the Congress do now?

If he were not so nice, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would have been quietly celebrating the Congress party's drubbing at the polls.

Over-enthusiastic Congress leaders, who had planned an anti-Manmohan 'Rahul lao desh bachao' movement from March 6, have silently returned to their barracks.

Now that the poll results are out, it's clear Dr Singh will serve as prime minister till May 2014. The UPA, however, has become a lame duck alliance.

All bills pertaining to reforms will have to be shelved.

Now because of the UP results, the Congress will be forced to listen to both Mamata Banerjee and Mulayam Singh Yadav before the Presidential election in July.

A tough task this, considering the absence of any understanding between the 'M' from Bengal and 'M' from UP.

Tsk, tsk.

There's one game you can still play after the elections are over -- yup, the age-old blame game. And the knives are already out in the Congress!

Five Congress general secretaries want their colleague Digvijay Singh to be shunted out of 24, Akbar Road.

Some want him to return to his home state, Madhya Pradesh.

One particular cynic suggests appointing him governor of Gujarat. His rationale? Gujarat is ideal ground for Diggy Raja to undertake a fight for a secular polity against you-know-who.

Given Sushil Kumar Shinde and S M Krishna's examples, nothing can stop Singh from staging a comeback into active politics at a later stage.

Singh's supporters are bent on fixing responsibility for the Punjab debacle at party General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi's door.

Another office-bearer, Mohan Prakash, is also in the line of fire; he had screened the UP candidates on behalf of the Congress.

Let the games begin!

24, Akbar Road -- the Congress party headquarters -- has witnessed massive mood swings this past week.

In anticipation of the party's outright victory in Punjab and Uttrakhand, huge orders had been placed for mithai and ladoos. Post-result, they had to be hurriedly cancelled.

Congress-friendly florists, bandmasters and orchestra companies are also mourning the party's debacle.

Khurshid, not Khan, that is...

Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid is seeking divine protection in the wake of his wife Louise Fernandes's poor show in Farrukhabad; the lady finished fifth in the assembly election.

The otherwise suave and sober Salman had gone out of the way to ensure her victory. He went out-of-character as to raise the controversial Muslim quota issue and reportedly claim that the Batla House encounter caused Sonia Gandhi to shed tears.

Salman's detractors want him out of the minorities affairs ministry, a portfolio he also holds.