'People of India were in no mood to bring Congress into power'

Eknath Gaikwad, the former Member of Parliament from Mumbai’s South Central constituency reacts to his defeat.

Until a few hours ago, the Congress’ Eknath Gaikwad represented the Mumbai South Central constituency of the Lok Sabha. He was defeated by the Shiv Sena candidate, Rahul Shewale by a margin of over 1.3 lakh votes.

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Gaikwad was so far undefeated -- first as a member of the state assembly and then as a member of the Parliament.

In an earlier interview to Rediff.com, he had said that his defeat was impossible.

This is Gaikwad, hours after he was beaten:

The people of India were in no mood to bring us (the Congress) into power.

They had made up their mind and overlooked the work we have done.

They wanted to see the Congress defeated.

This election was all about negative voting -- the idea was to vote us out of power.

The Bharatiya Janata Party on the other hand made tall promises and projected us as a party only of scams.

The Modi Wave was created by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP and the media.

Five members of Legislative Assembly (who fall under Gaikwad’s constituency) promised that they would get people from their (state assembly) constituencies to vote for me. That didn’t happen.

My loss is my fault alone. I couldn not reach out to my people and that was my failing.

All of us will take two days off to recuperate from the hectic campaigning. From Monday onwards we will get back to work.

Image: Eknath Gaikwad had earlier said his defeat was impossible. Photograph: Reuben NV/Rediff.com