There is another axiom that the Congress is yet to assimilate. Even waves need an organisational structure to get translated into votes. In UP, a Salman Khursheed or a Pramod Tewari are not reliable and adept organisational talents. Were Sonia Gandhi and her son to create a tsunami of sorts and flood the Gangetic plains with a Congress sweep, even then the Congress would need the services of the aam party worker. And the party has been able to retain only a few of them in UP. When Jawaharlal Nehru swept the polls in 1952 and 1957, Congress had a problem of plenty at the constituency level. Among those seeking their electoral fortunes were Lal Bahadur Shastri, Dinesh Singh, K.D. Malviya, Tribhuban Narain Singh, Feroz Gandhi and Shah Nawaz Khan. Such was the stature of the grassroots leader and the strength of the organisation apparatus. In the past three years, the Congress could not even engineer a defection as valuable as a Narayan Rane or a Siddharamaiah. Long before the battle for Lucknow, Congress seems to have chosen the path of an inexplicable, tactical retreat.

The writer is national editor, CNN-IBN