Ball-bearings found at the blast site in Naroda Bazar. (AFP)

New Delhi, July 26: Confident on Tuesday, concussed on Saturday.

If the low-intensity blasts in Bangalore shattered the Congress’s euphoria after the government’s trust vote win on July 22, the Ahmedabad explosions have relegated the victory to a distant memory.

The shell-shocked party is now hoping against hope the attacks wouldn’t communally polarise Gujarat and lead to a repeat of 2002, when some 60 deaths in a burning train in Godhra triggered bloody riots.

“Gujarat being Gujarat, nothing can be taken lightly,” a Congress office-bearer said. “In Karnataka, it was a terror attack, in Gujarat it can lay the foundation of dividing society. Karnataka does not have a communal ethos, Gujarat has. If you make blood flow, they can later justify bloodletting.”

The office-bearer recalled chief minister Narendra Modi’s “action-reaction” comment after the post-Godhra violence to support his observation, which came even as BJP leader L.K. Advani threw the gauntlet in the Centre’s court.

Advani demanded that the President ratify pending anti-terror laws passed by BJP-ruled Rajasthan and Gujarat if attacks like these had to be contained.

While the Congress’s official response has been cautious — chief spokesperson M. Veerappa Moily said “religion and terrorism should not be mixed” — sources said a “clearer” line would be firmed up after the party deliberated on the statements emanating from the BJP.

Advani, the Lok Sabha MP from Gandhinagar, talked of a “sinister design” on behalf of terrorist organisations which the Centre was advised to “look at seriously” but added that conclusions shouldn’t be drawn from the fact that the back-to-back blasts occurred in BJP-ruled states.

In response to Advani’s first assertion, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said: “Yes, when India is trying to find a place in the comity of nations… those opposed to India are trying to weaken India by taking the government out of this orbit.”

The blasts came at a time the Prime Minister was focusing on getting the nuclear deal through.

Reacting to Advani’s statement on the blasts occurring in BJP-ruled states, Tewari said: “Whether this is a coincidence or not is something the security agencies will have to investigate.”

Congress sources said their biggest worry was Advani’s leitmotif of running a “soft state” could detract from the nuclear deal campaign.