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New Delhi:  The headiness that the BJP was experiencing this morning had dissipated by 11 am. At first glance, early leads showed the party was going to slap exit polls in the face with 90 of UP’s 403 seats seeming within reach. But then, the party began plateauing; and soon, it started dropping on the UP charts. By mid-morning, the party was positioned to land about 57 seats, a tiny improvement over the 51 it managed in the last state elections.

UP was just the beginning of the bad news. In Punjab, the BJP’s partner, the Shiromani Akali Dal, forced the state to break with tradition of not returning any party to power for a second term. While Parkash Singh Badal, the chief minister, has led his party to what will go down as a historic victory, the BJP actually did worse in Punjab than in the last elections, proving to be a liability for its partner.

And in Uttarakhand, where the BJP was in power, the Congress seems set to take over. Manipur has voted for the Congress. So of the five states that are up for grabs today, that leaves Goa open for the BJP to claim. Sudheendra Kulkarni of the BJP was remarkably candid. He said the party had failed to capitalise on both the anti-Mayawati mood in UP, and the national disenchantment with the Congress.

For the Congress, the big disappointment lies in Rahul Gandhi’s failure to serve as a catalyst for change in UP. His mother, Sonia, and his sister, Priyanka, campaigned hard for him in the state, especially in and around the family’s constituencies of Rae Bareilly and Amethi. The results show voters were not suitably impressed. The party is likely to move from the 22 seats it had so far to over 50 seats. So the Congress has done better than the BJP, but its performance is under-whelming given the star power of its first family. "This is clear that the Samajwadi Party will be the single largest party, but our mission to remove Mayawati has come true," said union minister Sachin Pilot.

The Congress said this does not prove that Mr Gandhi, the undisputed face of its campaign in UP, has belly-flopped. Leaders from Digvijaya Singh to Rita Bahuguna Joshi said they should be blamed, and that Mr Gandhi must be praised for connecting the party with the youth of UP. "He showed that the Congress is in the reckoning in UP after a long time," said Union minister Ashwini Kumar.