Problem: If the seats and vote share of the Congress could move between 1996 and 1998 from 140 to 140 and from 28.8 per cent to 25.4 per cent, what is the party's net electoral gain? Answer: 0 and -3.4 per cent respectively.

It is for bringing about this unenviable "net electoral gain" that the Congress Working Committee (CWC) last week paid fulsome compliments to Sonia Gandhi, without forgetting to mention that it was possible entirely due to her "Herculean efforts". It even invited her to play "a more direct and enlarged role" in party affairs, such as choosing who should lead the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), a shorthand in the party's power lexicon for its prime ministerial candidate. Whatever be the party's shortcomings, it cannot be faulted for lacking in a sense of humour!

As both the India Today opinion polls held before (December 11-17) and after (February 4-8) Sonia entered the electoral fray indicated, the Congress and its allies were set to win only about 165 seats, which they just managed to do. Sonia's aerial speech-reading sorties, that began on December 29 and ended on February 6, may go down in the annals as a barnstorming that missed almost all the barn doors. She began from Tamil Nadu which hasn't returned a single Congress candidate. She was due to end in West Bengal -- which she couldn't because of bad weather -- where the party's tally has come down from nine to one. In between, the lady has left a galaxy of her worshippers in the lurch -- a Satish Sharma at the Gandhi family pocket-borough of Amethi, an Arjun Singh in Hoshangabad and an N.D. Tiwari in Nainital. The fund-starved party used seven flying machines on Sonia's tours and spent nearly Rs 10 crore, apart from bankrolling the huge human and material resources on the ground which was evident at her rallies. Yet, of the 138 constituencies on her itinerary, less than 50 could secure the Congress candidates' passage to the Lok Sabha.

So, what went wrong? While her spin doctors argue that things could have been much worse if she weren't around, there is more sense in the ordinary Congressmen's explanation that the party lacked the organisational machinery to translate the visible enthusiasm created by her visits into votes. A typical example is West Bengal where a vertical split in the Congress cooked its goose. In Tamil Nadu, the party's support had moved away to the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) and the AIADMK long before she was on the campaign trail. However, a share of the blame should also go to the party's inability to forge strong alliances against the BJP. In Madhya Pradesh, a state high on her priorities, the Congress vote share did go up impressively from 30.9 per cent to 39.16 per cent. But, in terms of seats, the Congress remained at 10.

The only states where her landings brought the party rich or moderate dividends are Maharashtra,, Rajasthan, Bihar and Karnataka. In Maharashtra, however, the credit should go equally--at least--to the party's electoral adjustments with the SP and the RPI. Says Sharad Pawar, the Congress pillar in Maharashtra: "We provided the organisational structure, local alliances and unity in ranks to convert Soniaji's charisma into votes. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of many of the other state units." In Bihar, the party's gain of three seats over the two in 1996 is due entirely to the alliance with Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD. The party's vote share in the state actually slipped from 11.26 per cent to just 7.13 per cent.