The Bharatiya Janata Party's dreams of making India "Congress-mukt" (free of Congress) have bit the dust in three crucial states where it was in power, and has been decimated in the other two states, the Shiv Sena said in Mumbai on Wednesday. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have been relegated to the sidelines, Congress President Rahul Gandhi is the shining star of merit, said clobbering edits by the Sena mouthpieces "Saamana" and "Dopahar Ka Saamana".

Ironically, five years ago after Modi's name was first proposed as Prime Minister, these same states had gone to elections where he had successfully campaigned, and the victories were dubbed as "his auspicious entry" for the BJP. "Now, as the PM, these states have given a solid drubbing to the BJP. While its invincible bastions like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have fallen, in Telangana, BJP' tally is lower than Congress' and in Mizoram, it was decimated," the Sena said.