The BJP’s electoral battle cry, abki baar 65 paar (this time, 65-plus seats), boomeranged on Monday with the party seemingly set to lose even the single-largest party crown to the JMM.

In the evening, Raghubar Das visited the party office at Harmu where he held a closed-door meeting with senior party leaders.

“I honour the mandate,” the outgoing chief minister said after the meeting. Asked if it was a defeat of Narendra Modi or Raghubar Das, he replied: “I take the defeat of the party as my personal defeat.”

Asked about the campaign slogan, he said: “We had set the target to win 65 seats and one should always fix a big target.”

Senior state BJP leader and party spokesperson Dindayal Barnwal was upfront: “Apparently we could not convince voters with our ideas and agenda of development amid propaganda run by the Opposition. We will surely analyse our defeat to correct our fault.”

BJP general secretary Deepak Prakash said: “We had not expected this, but let the final result come out, we will surely correct whatsoever will be required to be corrected.”

Party insiders, who spoke under cover of anonymity, blamed Das — despite the fact that the party central leadership had deployed the biggest guns in its arsenal, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who addressed nine rallies — to party chief Amit Shah (11 rallies) to Hindutva poster boy Adityanath.

Some BJP leaders said the party organisation and election management were messed up.

“We did not fight like a team,” said a BJP MP. “This was a single-man party run by chief minister Raghubar Das; so much so that state BJP president Laxman Giluwa remained a titular head. Our state election in-charge Om Prakash Mathur made guest appearances. Our deputy in-charge Ramvichar Netam was not taken seriously. The party in power must have a say over governance and government, but here in Jharkhand the party organisation remained subordinate to the government.”

He said there was a “bitter divide” in the BJP and a good number of party workers worked against party candidates.

“The central leadership gave Das a free hand. There must be proper forum to address grievances of party leaders and workers and the senior leadership must take care of this. The dispute between Saryu Roy and chief minister has long been simmering and the central leadership turned a blind eye to it. The day Roy announced to contest the election against Das, the anti-incumbency narrative against Das became strong. Projecting Das as the CM face was a wrong decision. The party needs major surgery of the organisational structure,” said the MP.

Another party leader supported the observation and said Roy became a rallying point of the Opposition parties.

Das, the BJP leader said, toured Jharkhand but hardly took local leaders and workers into confidence.

“He was living under the illusion that is the Narendra Modi of Jharkhand. He was just copying Modi ji. Even rallies of central leadership and national issues could not make much impact on the election,” said a BJP office-bearer.

Some blamed the BJP’s decision to go solo minus its ally, the Ajsu Party.

“We were overconfident,” said another BJP office-bearer. “We were under the impression that we will easily net 40-plus seats without Ajsu Party. Had we contested together, we could have won more than 40 seats. Both Ajsu and the BJP have same vote bank and the division of our votes helped the Opposition win.”