The Congress and its campaigners in the media predicted an easy win for the incumbents even before the first vote was cast. After four rounds of the Lok Sabha poll it is an entirely different story.

The mood is anti-Congress in the countryside. The Congress is praising those parties which are arch-rivals of its own allies. Rahul Gandhi is praising the work of Nitish Kumar government in Bihar despite the fact that Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD is an ally of Congress. Other Congress leaders are luring Left parties despite having Mamata Banerjee as their ally in West Bengal. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress wants to bring AIADMK with them despite DMK being the part of UPA.

This behaviour of Congress leaders clearly shows that the party is afflicted with the feeling of despondency, pessimism and defeatism. Is it a credible show on election eve? It’s simply crass opportunism. This has created a voter revulsion for the UPA.

Cracks in UPA are out in the open. It is gauged gauged from the fact that three of its cabinet minister including Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, who is miffed with the Congress, skipped the Cabinet meeting recently.

On the other hand NDA is standing firm. In fact, TRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao attended the NDA’s Strength Show at Ludhiana where he he expressed faith in Advani’s leadership. The Congress has failed to run a coalition government.

So what is the prediction? A negative vote for UPA is on the cards. In this Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is on the verge of becoming a spoilsport for Congress. There are no two opinions that the Sikh is not up to the job. BJP leader Arun Jaitley deserves a salute to call him the “night watchman’ of UPA government. The main batsman being AICC chief Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress is facing its worst-ever defeat in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The party’s only solace is likely to come from the Left Front-ruled states like Kerala and West Bengal and Orissa where it is certain to gain from the BJP-BJD split.

The Congress and its allies together had won 95 seats only from Tamil Nadu, Andhra and Maharashtra. This time it would be lucky to win even half this number. The party and its allies are losing heavily in Haryana, Jharkhand, Assam, Gujarat and Bihar. It also is not making any headway in UP.

The gains in the Left Front-ruled states and Orissa are not sufficient for the Congress to offset the losses in its traditional bastions. Sonia’s party should be really lucky if it is able to reach anywhere near its 2004 tally of 142. In fact, anti-incumbency is working against the party both at the center and in the states. This is the general trend with just a fortnight for the votes to be counted.

The good news for the BJP is that it has almost retained its supremacy in the states where it gained maximum seats in the 14th Lok Sabha. These include, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Karnataka. In states like Gujarat, Bihar, and Maharashtra the BJP and its allies are making remarkable gains. It is gaining ground also in Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Jharkhand.

It is not only the poor performance and the bad image of the UPA as a whole that are working against the Congress. Its attempt to avoid a discussion on its five-year stint in office would have worked had the zero inflation been reflected in the prices of essential commodities. Food articles are as costly as they were when inflation rate was hovering around 13 per cent. The economic meltdown need not have created job loss as Indian economy is not essentially export driven.