As I went yesterday from TV studio to TV studio, starting at ten in the morning and ending at nine at night, and again on looking at the headlines in the papers this morning, I felt like Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain's novel sitting in on his own funeral service in church when he is perfectly alive and kicking. For none of the anchors and headline subs took any account of the fact that in the five states where votes were counted yesterday, the Congress on the whole bagged many more seats than the BJP, and in four of the five states a significantly larger share of the total votes polled as well as a much larger share of the vote in seats contested. Does this lead to a Congress-mukt Bharat?Let us first take seats won. There were a total of 822 seats at stake. The BJP took 65, the Congress more than double:139! The BJP - the emerging "national party", (ha ha), captured just 6% of the seats; the Congress a little over 12%. The break-up is given below:BJP 60CONGRESS 26Wah, Wah, Modi!BJP 3CONGRESS 44Hai Hai, Modi!BJP 1CONGRESS 22Hai Hai, Modi!BJP 0CONGRESS 8Hai Hai, Modi!BJP 0CONGRESS 15Hai Hai, Modi!Jai, Jai, Congress!Is this a Congress in ICU? Is this a Congress on its death-bed?Let us now take vote-shares: Percentage of total votes castBJP 29.5CONGRESS 31Congress higher!BJP 10.2CONGRESS 12.3Congress ahead, but not by much.BJP 10.5CONGRESS 23.7Congress way aheadBJP 2.8CONGRESS 6.4Both low, but Congress two and a quarter times higherBJP NilCONGRESS 30.6No contest. Congress far, far ahead. Forming the government.Let us now compare vote shares in seats contested:BJP 42.05CONGRESS 32BJP higherBJP 10.2CONGRESS 12.3Congress higher - but not by muchBJP 2.8CONGRESS 6.4Both low, but Congress two and a quarter times higherBJP NilCONGRESS 42.77Congress wins hugely. BJP nowhere in the picture.Let us finally compare the "hit rate" of the two parties, that is, the percentage of seats won in seats contested:BJP 67.4CONGRESS 21.3Shabash, Modiji. Jeet gaye.BJP 1.03CONGRESS 47.83Hai, Hai, Modiji, buri tharah haar gaye!BJP 1CONGRESS 25.3Phir, buri haalath, ModijiBJP NilCONGRESS 19.51Arre, kahan reh gaye, Modiji?BJP No showCONGRESS 71Bechare, Modiji, pahunch bhi nahi paye! Congress ki mahan jeetOf course, the Congress is in a bad way - but it was almost that way before Bihar. It needs to pull itself up and return to its earlier eminence. But the idea that the party is finished, assiduously propagated by Amit Shah and gang, needs to be disabused. The Congress is not in ICU. It is very much in the running.(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Rajya Sabha.)