Congress believes the location of toilets in the party headquarters were to blame for poll loss.
The Congress has lost every state election in Madhya Pradesh over the last 14 years. And the party thinks it might just have figured out why. But the reason doesn't have anything to do with politics.
Instead, the Congress believes the toilets in the party headquarters, Indira Bhavan, were to blame. A
Vaastu expert who surveyed the building, the Congress' headquarters since 2003, has told the party that the rest rooms of all the office-bearers on the third floor were facing the wrong side, the East. The expert advised the party to fix this flaw.
And it is.
KK Mishra, Chief Spokesperson for Madhya Pradesh Congress told NDTV that they needed the support of the public to dislodge the BJP in the next election.
"But we also seek divine intervention," he added.
This is where
Vaastu, a traditional Hindu system of architecture intended to integrate architecture with nature and ancient beliefs utilizing geometric patterns (yantra), symmetry and directional alignments, comes in.
"There is
Vaastu dosh in the building... " the Congress leader said.
Mr Mishra said he wasn't someone "who will say this is wrong. We believe in religion."
So does the ruling BJP. A senior BJP leader appeared to come in defence of the Congress making the corrections but insisted Vaastu compliance won't help the Congress.
"I don't think this is superstition, these are all Vedic sciences, but they are deep rooted exercises. I don't think this is going to benefit Congress. They will have to come clean on their character first," Dr Hitesh Bajpai, spokesperson for the BJP said.
There are 231 seats in Madhya Pradesh Assembly, out of which 165 MLAs are from the BJP and 58 from the Congress. So, to increase the tally in 2018, the new mantra for the Congress is - remove the wrongly-placed toilets, water tank and paint the building.