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 PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN: For me, the Karnataka elections were a great experience. The average MP, particularly a Lok Sabha one, usually has a narrow vision — you do not see anything beyond your own constituency because it does not bring you any political dividend.

The election result did not meet our expectations. We expected to be the largest single party, if not win the absolute majority. I did not realise that Karnataka was so caste-ridden and communally divided. It surprised me to learn about all the castes and sub-castes and that we must provide tickets for all the sub-castes. Everybody had to be appeased.

There’s another thing I learnt: people say elections in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are expensive, but nothing prepared us for what we saw in Karnataka. Here, money really mattered and it produced results.

•VANDITA MISHRA: Congress is one of the oldest players in Karnataka politics and has played the caste game all these years. So why do you say you were surprised by the caste divisions?

What surprised me and other Congress leaders who had come from outside the state was the intensity of caste feelings. Not only the castes but the sub-sub-castes. For example there are 27 sub-castes of Lingayats, four or five of Vokkaliggas. So what happened in the ticket distribution is that in order to balance this caste ratio, merit suffered. If you set a quota for a certain community then you had to meet the number even if there was a better candidate from another community.

•SUMAN K. JHA: The Congress party’s post-mortem of Gujarat found that inducting rebels did not help the party and that not projecting a candidate as chief minister was a big mistake. Do you think, the Congress committed the same mistakes in Karnataka?

In Gujarat, we specifically tried woo BJP rebels, with the understanding that we would try to break into the Patel community which is supposedly a BJP stronghold. We had nothing to lose if we gave seats to those who migrated to us because the seats were not ours in the first place. It didn’t work out. We learned from the experience and made a point not to touch any BJP rebel in Karnataka — except for one MLA.

•SUMAN K. JHA: What about not projecting a CM candidate?

The Congress does not project a leader — particularly when it is in opposition. We did not do it for Gujarat either. Karnataka was an important election. We had to put everything that we had, all our assets and leaders had to be in fray. That brings us to S.M. Krishna. He was keen to return to active politics. A very calculated decision was taken to use Mr Krishna in the campaign with the understanding that he would not contest the elections. We made him chairman of the election monitoring and coordination committee, based in Bangalore.

I believe that in Karnataka, which is very caste and community divided society, if you name one person, his community gets projected at the expense of others. For instance, there are two major communities, the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats. Two major parties — JD (S) and BJP — had one leader each belonging to these communities.

Our social base since the time of Devraj Urs comprises Dalits, Muslims, OBCs and the forward castes. It was an inclusive social coalition. That was disturbed in 2004 when JD(S) came forward and then, there was Mr Hegde, too. Both formations, Congress and the Janata Dal, were fighting for the same coalition.

In this election, we had Mr Kharge as the state unit president; he belongs to a Dalit community and is a very senior leader. The question before us was — how do we use Mr Krishna? If he contested the elections, whether you like it or not he would be the chief ministerial candidate. In which case what about Mr Kharge?

Our thinking was that we should convert this election into a two-party election, wish away the JD(S) and rebuild our social coalition. But our coalition was being poached by JD(S), BSP and other parties. So, on balance, not projecting any one person as CM also meant we were not projecting any one community. In the Karnataka context I think it was the right decision.

•SHISHIR GUPTA: Did the rise in prices and your handling of terrorism have an impact on the elections?

The entire BJP campaign was based on only these two issues. The increase in inflation indices during the campaign period did not help us. The Jaipur blast definitely did not help at all. We have a record of handling inflation better than other countries in a similar situation and argued that we were trying to handle prices. But that was a defensive statement and the price indices continued to go up.

SHISHIR GUPTA: The BJP did not campaign on any communal issue. For the first time the Election Commission ensured there were no buntings or banners. There was huge, silent majority who decided to vote for BJP — doesn’t that concern the Congress?

It is certainly a cause of concern for Congress. But I do not agree that BJP did not play the Hindutva card. They played it very subtly by projecting Narendra Modi. Mr Modi said I will give you a Gujarat model of development if you vote BJP. That kind of subtext was always there. But I am not taking away anything from the BJP’s win — people did vote for them.

•UNNI RAJEN SHANKER: In an interview to The Indian Express, S.M. Krishna had pointed at three factors: no projection of a chief ministerial candidate, wrong selection of candidates and no clarity in strategy. What about the latter?

We went into these elections talking about development and stability. The people of Karnataka seem to have paid heed to the issue of stability. Compared to 2004, when there were 22 independent small party candidates, this time there was no small party candidates. Only six independent candidates won, four of them Congress rebels, one JD(S) and one BJP. But what surprised me most was that despite our appeal to vote for two parties, in other words, not to vote for JD(S), it got the same support as earlier. This is quiet alarming as it fragments our social base. We met the BSP challenge by having a Dalit leader in Mr Kharge. So I do not think we had unclear strategy. The only thing is that we did not project a chief ministerial candidate and I have already addressed that issue.