Kushvir Singh, probably the only ?new? face in the Congress in Rajasthan who got a ticket to stand for the first time, won the election, and all the ?old?, worn-out characters hanging on to their gaddis have lost. The Congress Party general secretary in charge of Rajasthan did not see it coming even though the youth Congress workers across the state were not giving their party more than 85 seats!

It shows that there is an electorate out there that wants a generational shift but no one is listening. The country is looking for fresh faces and the women of India have clearly voted their gender in. So much for the Women?s Bill!

Vasundhara Raje, despite the odds she was dealing with as well as the combating within her party and from her opponents in the political arena, has more than surprised everyone. It is her personal victory and the Bharatiya Janata Party gained through her ability to cover the agenda she set for herself.

Now she has the opportunity to move Rajasthan towards economic growth using sectors that the Congress? Ashok Gehlot never understood, which he ignored and neglected. The defeat of the Congress by such a wide margin should shake up the prevailing mindset of the party.

The BJP did that. They fielded two young leaders, both women, from two major states, taking the risk, and they won. The Congress fielded people who everyone knew would lose and so it has. But, no one believed Gehlot?s party would do so badly.

In an earlier column I had said that the assembly would probably be hung but this defeat will have a resounding effect on many other states if there is a mid-term poll. Had the Congress Party won three of the four states, future trends would have looked good for it. Today, Kerala and Maharashtra are in a precarious position, and maybe Andhra Pradesh too.

Where is the Congress Party headed? What will it do to resurrect itself before the next general elections? Will it purge the old and back a new generation? Will it break down its walls and hear the voices from the ground of its own workers, particularly those under the age of 40? Or will the general secretaries carry distorted feelers from entrenched vested interests, old-time leaders and continue to remain the only ones with access to the top?

Will those who got it wholly wrong, be removed from their VIP positions within the party? Will they pay the price? Or, will they be ?kept? on and be given more kudos?

As a young person said to me, ?the Congress will never learn. They will give tickets yet again to the losers ? the older the better.?

Is that how the Congress wants the majority of the population to view it? Can they not see what everyone has seen? What is the fear of ?eradicating? the 70 plus as a start, moving quickly to thereafter discard those in their 60s? Split the party if so required because it cannot really get much worse than this, and start anew, with the post-independence generation.

Indira Gandhi resurrected the same party on two critical occasions when she and her party were written off. She took on the old stalwarts in her party. She won. Will this avatar of the same party take a similar ?risk?? Will they ban the varisht netas?

Many Congress leaders who had connections on the ground in Rajasthan, who had won and lost real elections in their own states, had told the party high command in no uncertain terms what the reality was on the ground. Constituencies where incumbent candidates lost had been brought to the notice of the All India Congress Committee well before the ticket distribution but no heed was paid. Those very same potential losers were given their tickets and 90 per cent of them lost. Whoever was responsible for ticket distribution in Rajasthan needs to be hauled over the coals for the debacle.

The BJP did the opposite. They worked their strategy, put in some new faces, took the risk and went for the kill.