Ahmedabad: The Congress continued its downslide losing the Junagadh municipal corporation in Saurashtra region of Gujarat.
The ruling BJP which had retained power in the 2017 state assembly elections and consolidated it hold retaining all the 26 Lok Sabha seats from Gujarat for the second time retained the Junagadh municipal corporation almost wiping out the Congress.
The BJP won 54 seats in the 59-member Junagadh civic body while the Congress could get only one seat. The remaining four seats went to the Nationalist Congress Party.
The Junagadh poll outcome is the Congress party’s worst-ever performance in Modi’s home state. With Junagadh, the BJP retained power in all the eight municipal corporations in the state while most of the district and taluka panchayats have also started coming under the control of the BJP because of the large-scale defection by the Congress members to the BJP in the aftermath of the December 2017 Assembly elections.
Celebrating the party’s victory in the Junagadh civic body, the BJP state party president Jitu Vaghani said it was the “beginning of the end of the Congress in Gujarat”.
He claimed that the Junagadh outcome was indicative of what was in store for the Congress in the 2022 Assembly elections in the state. “The Congress will be wiped out of Gujarat in the next few years,” he added.
By R.K.MISRA
