On June 4, as the Lok Sabha results came, the Congress and the INDIA bloc saw green shoots of Opposition revival and celebrated what they believed was the beginning of the decline of the BJP after a decade of electoral pre-eminence. Five months later, a new reality is staring at its face. Plus, a painful realisation – that the Opposition cannot be complacent, relying that the same themes and narratives that helped it punch some holes in the BJP’s tally in the summer will give it electoral dividends repeatedly.

Five months after the Congress showed signs of resurrection and resurgence with 99 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, the party was staring at its lowest tally ever in Maharashtra Saturday. Coming on the heels of its defeat in Haryana and collapse in Jammu and Kashmir a month ago, it has left the party in choppy electoral waters again. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s resounding win from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat bypoll was poor consolation, and with three Gandhi family members now in Parliament, set to be projected by Congress rivals as proof that the party is the family and vice-versa.

In his first reaction to the results, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi called the results in Maharashtra “unexpected” and said the party would “analyse them in detail”. Thanking the people of Jharkhand for the INDIA win, Gandhi added: “The victory of the alliance in the state is a victory of the protection of water, forest and land along with the Constitution.”

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s response was almost similar. While he also called the Maharashtra results “unexpected” and said the party would analyse them, he added: “We are true representatives of the ideology of Chhatrapati Shivaji, Shahuji, Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar.”

Thanking JMM leader Hemant Soren and other Congress allies for the INDIA performance in Jharkhand, Kharge attributed it to the people giving priority to “the issues of their rights, water, forests and land”. “They have rejected divisive and false politics. They have defeated the game of misuse of constitutional institutions.”

Apart from the Congress, the Maharashtra results are a blow to key INDIA bloc members NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT), which are now staring at an existential crisis.

In Jharkhand, INDIA performed better, but it is a victory essentially of the JMM which, despite a poor Congress effort, successfully faced down the BJP’s narrative and its shrill polarising tone.

Coming back to Maharashtra, with its heft both in terms of politics and resources, the state results are a fresh reminder of the Congress’s inability to build on strengths or to be nimble on its feet – particularly when the BJP remoulded its campaign in the light of the learnings from the Lok Sabha polls.

While the BJP top leadership led with slogans of “Ek hain to safe hain” and “Katenge toh batenge” as a direct counter to the Opposition’s “threat to the Constitution” narrative from the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress talked virtually the same language of caste census, with the party still basking from the high of the Bharat Jodo Yatras. The pitch for a caste census and the promise that a Congress government would breach the 50% reservation ceiling was led and repeated incessantly by Gandhi.

It’s contentious how much the issue held resonance in an election more about bread-and-butter local concerns than larger ideas such as the Constitution. With the Maratha-non-Maratha divide also putting Maharashtra on edge, and on the verge of violence several times, the Congress needed to frame its message on caste better at the very least.

Dazed party leaders admitted Saturday that the Lok Sabha elections perhaps allowed people to vent their concern on the issue, and they were ready to move on. “The BJP spent huge amounts of money. We could not at any moment gauge this was going to be a wave election, we never anticipated this. We felt it was close. Of course, there could be many reasons. Our seat adjustments were not perfect. All the leaders in the alliance were angling for chief ministership. But the Ladki Bahin Yojana seems to have had a huge impact,” one senior Congress leader said.

“The MVA or the Congress had no clear narrative or message for a developed or      aspirational state like Maharashtra. It was a mistake to believe that competitive ‘doles’ of doubling the Ladki Bahin would be enough,” another leader said.

Some Congress leaders were furious about the leadership’s decision to let outside strategists – Sunil Kanugolu, seen as having Gandhi’s ear, played a prominent role – run the campaign. Realling a meeting of the manifesto committee, one leader said, “External consultants with no skin in the game were telling our leaders that if you don’t promise Rs 3,000, you won’t win, even Rs 2,500 won’t do. And they had no choice but to accept.”

Another leader said that no lessons appear to have been learnt from recent setbacks. “In Haryana, the tactical mistake was to let the Hoodas run the show… sending the message that Jats were going to be at the helm again, which upset the non-Jats. In Maharashtra, every leader was a chief ministerial aspirant.”

The final count is a mighty blow as, along with Uttar Pradesh, it was Maharashtra that was the shiniest star on the INDIA horizon in the Lok Sabha polls five months ago, with the bloc winning two-third of the state’s seats.

Not only did the Congress vote share slip in five months from 16.92% to around 12%, the Sena (UBT) dipped from 16.72% to around 10%. The NCP (SP) saw a marginal increase from 10.17%, but its tally plunged.

The Congress was wiped out in most of the regions, with nearly half of its seats likely to come from its stronghold of Vidarbha alone.

In Jharkhand, where the INDIA bloc retained power convincingly, the Congress’s strike rate was the lowest of the four parties in the coalition (which includes the JMM, RJD and CPI-ML-L).

The Maharashtra loss follows two other defeats for the Congress since the Lok Sabha polls, in Haryana, where it was expected to win comfortably, and J&K, where it completely lost ground to the BJP. This will once again strengthen voices within INDIA who question the Congress’s “natural” claim to leadership of the bloc.