With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failing to defeat the Congress in Delhi for the third consecutive time, its leaders on Monday searched for the causes with some guessing that it could be anything between "development" by Congress to portraying older leader as Chief Ministerial face.

As the party promised to introspect, some BJP leaders wondered whether the choice of candidates and poll plank of terrorism and inflation could have failed the party in wooing the voters of the national capital.

"The Delhi results are surprising as we had expected a majority," said BJP president Rajnath Singh after Congress emerged victorious for the third successive time.

Singh said local issues dominated the elections in Delhi and claimed the voters had made up their mind well in advance about their choice of leaders.

Former party president Venkaiah Naidu said it was a time for "analysis" as factors like candidate selection have resulted in "a lot of damage".

BJP chief ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra said, "We will certainly review why our candidates could not win in some seats that were considered our stronghold."

Noting that the party failed in communicating its issues to the voters, Delhi BJP leader and Mayor Arati Mehra said, "Though inflation and terrorism were the very big issues in these elections, perhaps we could not convince the voters on the same way it should have been."

She even conceded that new voters could have preferred Congress because of the "developmental works like Metro, flyovers and roads."