Veteran Congress leader Deep Chand Sharma, who lost from the Outer Delhi to the BJP candidate by over 2 lakh votes, has apprehension over the role played by senior party leader Sajjan Kumar. ``I was also the election in charge of Sajjan Kumar. But I never did anything like this. It was the party tradition to respect the choice of the high command and work for the candidate,'' he says.

``Most of the MLAs, who owed allegiance to Sajjan Kumar, were absent. They never worked in the constituency for the election,'' he says. He has listed the names of the eight MLAs who abstained from campaigning in his letter to Sonia Gandhi.

The story is same in Chandni Chowk where Congress candidate Jai Prakash Aggarwal narrowlylost to the BJP. ``We make political appointments to institutions like the Wakf Board or Haj Committee hoping that in times of crisis they would help us and work for the party. But no one did that,'' Aggarwal says.

``Even when DPCC chief Subhash Chopra called all the MLAs and corporators for a pre-election meeting, most of them did not turn up,'' he says. ``It was total chaos.'' In his report to Sonia, Aggarwal has listed the names of MLAs, Haroon Yusuf, Anjali Rai and Ashok Jain.

New Delhi Congress candidate and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member R.K. Dhawan feels that everyone is to be blamed. ``I am not saying it is the organisation or the MLAs. It was just a complete collapse,'' he says. ``It was a sabotage. How else can I lose by about 6,000 in the Chief Minister's constituency of Gole Market?'' he adds.

Former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler -- who lost by over 13,000 votes to the BJP in Delhi Sadar -- is furious that no action has been taken against the partymen who paved way for the rout.``If no action is taken against the MLAs or councillors or even other Congressmen who not only did not work for me but worked for the opposition BJP, then I along with the MLAs and district presidents will take up the matter with Sonia Gandhi. I want immediate action taken by Subhash Chopra and Sheila Dikshit against these MLAs,'' he says.

Tytler adds: ``There were obvious organisational shortcomings. Even the MLAs thought that they held sway and did not realise that they got elected just on the price rise issue.''