The Congress had performed very badly in the State in the last two Lok Sabha elections held in May 1996 and February this year and on both occasions, this was attributed largely to Panchayat Raj.

Critics of Panchayat Raj, including those from the Congress, had said that de-centralisation of power was the main factor for the party's poor performance.But the Congress victory in the recent Assembly elections has changed all this; now there are many people who claim that the ruling party made it in the elections again only due of Panchayat Raj.Even as Congressmen debate the new-found virtues of Panchayat Raj, the BJP , whose hopes of winning the Assembly elections were dashed, is now wondering what went wrong.

Before the Assembly elections, all BJP leaders including the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Union Home Minister L K Advani and its nationalgeneral secretary Narendra Modi , who is in-charge of the party for MP, had dismissed suggestions that price rise could be an election issue. Former state CM Sunderlal Patwa also echoed this view and maintained that something as important as the elections could not be decided on the prices of onions alone.BJP leaders now admit that they had failed to assess the impact of rising prices on the electorate.

Another issue that has come into focus after the poll results is the performance of the Congress Government in the State during the last five years.This is because Digvijay Singh has been maintaining all along that elections were not won the basis of the performance of any government but on political arithmetics.He said this was proved in Bihar and West Bengal, where the same parties were being voted back to power despite performing rather indifferently.

The BJP, on the other hand, had dubbed the Congress Government as most inefficient and corrupt in the State, pushing it back by 20 years andresponsible for rise in atrocities on women and tribals. But all charges failed have an impact on the electorate which voted the Congress back to power.