A day after the 0-4 loss of the Congress in Assembly elections, knives were out in party targeting Centre for the failure. (PTI)

A day after the 0-4 loss of the Congress in Assembly elections caused NCP chief Sharad Pawar to sound alarm bells about weak rulers in the Congress and Sheila Dikshit to claim the state unit of the party had not been fully with her, there was more turmoil Tuesday with top state leaders of the Congress trading punches over the poll debacle .

Senior Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi fired a salvo at former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh saying he is "unwelcome" to the people "since he was ousted along with the Congress".

"Digvijaya Singh is someone people in MP detest. The PCC chief and CLP leader are his stooges. We could not convince the people who were apprehensive that Digvijaya Singh and his team will come back to power. People do not accept the negative and destructive style of politics Digvijaya Singh and his cohorts play," Chaturvedi told The Indian Express.

Blaming a "delay in decision-making", he said Jyotiraditya Scindia was "introduced" as campaign committee chief "a bit too late".

"The other reason is that the PCC was completely dysfunctional. Ticket distribution was another factor. Apart from the quality of candidates, their declaration also came late. Rahul Gandhi had announced at the Jaipur conclave that candidates will be announced three months in advance," said Chaturvedi.

While Chaturvedi targeted Digvijaya Singh, Chandrabhan, who resigned as Rajasthan PCC chief Monday blamed the "failures of the Central and state governments" for the party's debacle.

"Price-rise was a big factor and then there were corruption issues. Party workers were also demoralised because they never got support from the government. There was also this perception that our welfare schemes came too late - only for election purposes," he told The Indian Express when asked to elaborate on the failure.

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