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New Delhi:  Senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha today issued a joint statement, strongly criticising the party’s stand on its debacle in the assembly elections in Bihar.

 "The results of Bihar election show that no lesson has been learnt from fiasco in Delhi. To say everyone is responsible for defeat in Bihar is to ensure everyone is held responsible," the statement said.

 "It shows those who would have appropriated credit are bent on shrugging off responsibilty for the disastrous showing in Bihar," it added.

 "A principle reason for the latest defeat is the way in party has been emasculated in the last year. A thorough review needed for reasons for defeat," the statement read.

 The Bihar mandate has been seen by many as a comment on the 18-month performance of the Narendra Modi government. But senior leaders of the BJP, including home minister Rajnath Singh today, have said no blame can be pinned to the Prime Minister.

 Yesterday, after a meeting between its 12 top leaders -- including Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- to analyse the defeat, the BJP attributed it to its failure to gauge the effectiveness of the Grand Alliance.

 Today, Mr Singh said, "We couldn’t understand the mood (in the state). Social equations were against us in Bihar. I have addressed at least 50 rallies."

 "We were wrong in thinking the Grand Alliance won’t be able to consolidate votes due to other small and regional parties," Union finance minister Arun Jaitley had said.

Advani, Joshi raise a banner of revolt against Modi

Knives were out in BJP tonight with veteran leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and two others raising a banner of revolt against the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of Bihar debacle saying that the party has been "emasculated" in the last one year and was being "forced to kow-tow to a handful".

In the first challenge to Modi since he emerged the undisputed leader of the party and the government in May last year, the veterans including Shanta Kumar and Yashwant Sinha issued a brief but strongly-worded statement that demanded a thorough review of the debacle.

"The principal reason for the latest defeat is the way the party has been emasculated in the last year.

"A through review must be done of the reasons for the defeat as well as of the way the party is being forced to kow-tow to a handful, and how its consensual character has been destroyed," the statement said.

Before the statement was released from the residence of Joshi, a former BJP president, former union minister Arun Shourie and former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya were closeted with Joshi.

The statement said the results of the Bihar election showed that no lesson has been learnt from the fiasco in Delhi, where the Aam Aadmi Party trounced BJP by securing 67 of the 70 assembly seats.

"To say that everyone is responsible for the defeat in Bihar is to ensure that no one is held responsible. It shows those who would have appropriated credit if the party had won are bent on shrugging off responsibility for the disastrous showing in Bihar," it said.

The statement is an apparent dig at the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s defence of the leadership yesterday after the Parliamentary Board’s review of the performance in which he had said "as far as accountability is concerned the party wins collectively and loses collectively". He was reacting to a query whether party chief Amit Shah would be held responsible for the defeat.