You have clearly missed out a couple of important lessons that the congress can learn and which has to a great extent polarized the party and costed them power in Karnataka: 1. Manmohan's muslim appeasement to give the first rights over resources to Muslims. This will make the Muslims vote the congress. But this will also make an equal number of Hindus (who are not so called communal) to vote for partied like BJP. The same with the Ramasethu issue and Karunanidhi's insult to Rama revered by many Hindus in Karnataka. This has costed congress many votes. They should not just think of caste combination, there is something called a pan-hindu identity and this has worked well for the BJP. 2. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul has been projected as charishmatic leaders. They are not. It was by fluke they got this tag in the 2004 general election. There were the anti incumbency forces against BJP which voted the congress and this was termed as Sonia's charishma. She is an incompetent party president and even the rural masses know it. THe less said about rahul gandhi the better. He has'nt been able to make a single sensible sentence in the media. Sonia and Rahul are BJP's truimp cards. Congress can do well by getting rid of them and bringing about good indegenous leaders.