One can imagine a lowly josh in the party which has a demoralised state unit president who talks of resigning ahead of Lok Sabha polls. That's Maharashtra Congress — the unit the party high command has been expecting to win as many seats to increase the UPA's number. The high-energy levels, that the state unit showed after the emergence of Rahul Gandhi's leadership and the three-state win, are long lost. The situation appears so discouraging for the Congress 15 days ahead of the first round of polling that the Congress now faces a challenge of winning more seats than its ally Nationalist Congress Party.

Congress has two MPs while NCP has five. As usual, NCP has emerged a winner in the negotiations and sits pretty in the alliance, retaining seats in its in its influence area. In fact, if we look at how things have turned out we must say NCP has made a fool of Congress yet again. Congress workers are as frustrated as Ashok Chavan, who admitted in a phone conversation with a party worker that his opinion as state Congress chief held no water in Delhi's 24 Akbar Road. "Nobody out there listens to me," he said while pacifying a karyakarta who wanted to know why a proxy candidate was being forced in Chandrapur.