Opposition Congress in Gujarat has suffered a rout in the elections and by-elections to local self-government bodies.
The major blow for the party came from Junagadh in the Saurashtra region. In the elections to Junagadh Municipal Corporation, results of which were announced on Tuesday, the BJP won 54 out of 59 seats. The Congress managed to win only one seat and the NCP won four seats. One seat is vacant. Last time the Congress had won 15 seats.
In the by-elections to five district panchayat seats across the state, the BJP won all the seats. The saffron party also won 32 out of the 43 seats in the by-elections to taluka panchayats. The Congress could win only eight seats while the independents won three.
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In the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the BJP had retained all the 26 parliamentary seats.
The mood in the BJP camp was upbeat on Tuesday and party state president Jitu Vaghani was quick to thank the electorate. He said that the foundation has been laid for the BJP's victory in the 2022 assembly elections.
He hailed the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at the Centre and, Vijay Rupani and Nitin Patel in Gujarat.
Vaghani observed that the Congress has suffered defeat in the areas where it has MLAs. Now those MLAs would be wondering as to how they would win their next election, he added.
The Congress had nothing much to say. Its state party spokesperson Manish Doshi was on record to state that the party's lost in Junagadh due to infighting.
Ahead of elections to the JMC, a large number of Congress leaders, including the president of the party in Junagadh, had joined the BJP.
