Celebration, missing, only calculation

Lal Chand Sharma, 52, a senior Congress leader from Dehradun, was surfing TV channels at the party office on Tuesday morning. Like hundreds of party workers, he was expecting a landslide victory.

Lal Chand Sharma, 52, a senior Congress leader from Dehradun, was surfing TV channels at the party office on Tuesday morning. Like hundreds of party workers, he was expecting a landslide victory.

The excitement, however, soon ebbed as the BJP started gaining at the expense of the Congress. "Ticket distribution was not done correctly," shouted a party worker as soon the Congress lost few seats in Haridwar district.

With the voters giving a fractured mandate, there was no big jubilation either at the BJP or Congress office.

Uttarakhand state Congress president Yashpal Arya and Birender Singh, who is in charge of Uttarakhand affairs, locked themselves at a city hotel and came out in the afternoon after all the results were announced.

The BJP office was indeed deserted for hours. Workers and leaders started thronging the place soon after the party's tally started increasing. However, supporters of individual candidates danced to the beat of dhols while playing with colours.