The Bharatiya Janata Party said on Monday that the Congress Working Committee had not learnt any lessons from the Gujarat assembly election results.

"The results are a positive vote for the BJP government in the state and the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre," party general secretary and spokesman Arun Jaitley said.

He said the results were "also a protest vote against the kind of politics that pseudo-secularists practise in relation to Gujarat".

"The BJP won the Gujarat assembly polls for the third time in a row and on each occasion the party received an overwhelming mandate. The BJP had got 121 seats in 1995, 117 in 1998 and 126 in the latest polls," he said, adding that the party had succeeded in creating a pro-incumbency environment.

"Instead of understanding the content of this positive vote, the Congress party has tried to hair-split the distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva. There are some questions which the Congress will have to introspect," Jaitley said.

Referring to his assertion that the Gujarat assembly results also reflected a protest vote against the Congress policies, he pointed out that its state leaders maintained that it was the BJP that was behind the Godhra carnage.

He expressed surprise that the Congress said during the campaign that terrorism was a non-issue, but decided to hold the BJP responsible for the attacks on Parliament, the Akshardham and Raghunath temples, and the Sabarmati Express at Godhra.

"It is strange that while the rest of the country believes Pakistan and other insurgents to be responsible for these attacks, the Congress party should be holding the BJP responsible," he said. "If this logic is to be extended, then whom would the Congress party blame for the attacks that took place which resulted in the assassinations of both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi?"