Shimla, March 28 : Former chief minister Virbhadra Singh on Friday decided to break his silence on the party’s defeat in the recent Assembly polls. Back from a two-and-a-half month-long vacation, Virbhadra hit back at his detractors for “offering the reins of the government on a platter to the BJP”. Ruling out any possibility of his contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Mandi, Virbhadra said he was not in the race for a Governor’s post.

He claimed that while early elections — three months before the schedule — had an adverse impact on the Congress’ prospects, some party leaders did not behave responsibly and “prior to the elections, fed the high command with reports pertaining to the Congress’ dwindling poll prospects”. “Some even gave biased inputs, saying the party will be able to win merely 10 seats,” he alleged. The high command believed these reports and shifted its focus away from Himachal to Gujarat. Worse, at least 10 tickets were awarded to those who would have, in any case, lost their security deposits, he added.

He recalled, “Shockingly, I was left alone to travel across the state and campaign single-handedly. This was in contrast to the BJP’s campaign that saw star campaigners like L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Navjot Sindhu and Hema Malini making frequent trips to the state.”

Though Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi campaigned in the state for a few days, the party’s campaign paled in comparison to the BJP’s well-organised election campaign. And even the party’s media centre in Shimla was a failure, he alleged. He added that the Election Commission, too, had a hostile attitude towards the party.